Drawing animation

Question

I\'m creating a simple app where when the user presses a button, a series of lines will be drawn on the screen and the user will be able to see these lines drawn in real time (a

Answer 1

You say "just like an animation". Why not do an actual animation, a la Core Graphics' CABasicAnimation? Do you really need to show it as a series of lines, or is a proper animation ok?

If you want to animate the actual drawing of the line, you could do something like:

#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

- (void)drawBezierAnimate:(BOOL)animate
{
    UIBezierPath *bezierPath = [self bezierPath];

    CAShapeLayer *bezier = [[CAShapeLayer alloc] init];

    bezier.path          = bezierPath.CGPath;
    bezier.strokeColor   = [UIColor blueColor].CGColor;
    bezier.fillColor     = [UIColor clearColor].CGColor;
    bezier.lineWidth     = 5.0;
    bezier.strokeStart   = 0.0;
    bezier.strokeEnd     = 1.0;
    [self.view.layer addSublayer:bezier];

    if (animate)
    {
        CABasicAnimation *animateStrokeEnd = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"strokeEnd"];
        animateStrokeEnd.duration  = 10.0;
        animateStrokeEnd.fromValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.0f];
        animateStrokeEnd.toValue   = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:1.0f];
        [bezier addAnimation:animateStrokeEnd forKey:@"strokeEndAnimation"];
    }
}

Then all you have to do is create the UIBezierPath for your line, e.g.:

- (UIBezierPath *)bezierPath
{
    UIBezierPath *path = [UIBezierPath bezierPath];

    [path moveToPoint:CGPointMake(0.0, 0.0)];

    [path addLineToPoint:CGPointMake(200.0, 200.0)];

    return path;
}

If you want, you can patch a bunch of lines together into a single path, e.g. here is a roughly sine curve shaped series of lines:

- (UIBezierPath *)bezierPath
{
    UIBezierPath *path = [UIBezierPath bezierPath];
    CGPoint point = self.view.center;

    [path moveToPoint:CGPointMake(0, self.view.frame.size.height / 2.0)];

    for (CGFloat f = 0.0; f < M_PI * 2; f += 0.75)
    {
        point = CGPointMake(f / (M_PI * 2) * self.view.frame.size.width, sinf(f) * 200.0 + self.view.frame.size.height / 2.0);
        [path addLineToPoint:point];
    }

    return path;
}

And these don't block the main thread.

By the way, you'll obviously have to add the CoreGraphics.framework to your target's Build Settings under Link Binary With Libraries.