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Questions about animating NSBezierPath through NSAffineTransform with NSTimer

I am experimenting with NSAffineTransform, specifically trying to rotate an NSBezierPath around its own center.

What is necessary is to draw the object at the origin, do the rotation and translate it out to the desired position.

Here is my custom view class.

#import <AppKit/AppKit.h>

@interface UFOView: NSView { float fps; float x0, y0;

NSAffineTransform *rotr; // rotate each fram by 5 degrees NSAffineTransform *disptr; // translate path from origin to center of view NSBezierPath *path; NSBezierPath *drawPath;

}

@end

#import “UFOView.h”

@implementation UFOView

self = [ super initWithFrame: frame ]; if ( self ) { timer = [ NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval: fps target: self selector: @selector( singleStep: ) userInfo: nil repeats: YES ]; rotr = [ [ NSAffineTransform transform ] retain ]; disptr = [ [ NSAffineTransform transform ] retain ]; path = [ [ NSBezierPath bezierPath ] retain ]; } return self;

}

[ rotr release ]; [ disptr release ]; [ super dealloc ];

}

[ path moveToPoint: NSMakePoint( -22, -30 ) ]; [ path lineToPoint: NSMakePoint( -2, 30 ) ]; [ path lineToPoint: NSMakePoint( 28, -30 ) ]; [ path lineToPoint: NSMakePoint( -35, 8 ) ]; [ path lineToPoint: NSMakePoint( 35, 8 ) ]; [ path closePath ];

}

[ drawPath fill ]; [ [ NSColor blackColor ] set ]; [ drawPath stroke ]; [ rotr rotateByDegrees: 5.0 ]; [ aftr appendTransform: rotr ]; [ aftr appendTransform: disptr ]; [ drawPath transformUsingAffineTransform: aftr ]; [ self setNeedsDisplay: YES ];

}

@end

Great title to the page … but are you asking a question? You might want to cache the path and only update it when the bounds change… likewise calculate and cache the local centre of the path to use in your transformation. Then it’s just a matter of remembering what order to apply the translations …

I am definitely asking questions, but they may need to go in a topic whose title focuses more on the problem - which now is the animation. I have it working now using an NSTimer to do the animation. Previous memory allocation problems that progressively slowed the animation were not detectable in ObjectAlloc because it was manufacturing NSPoint structs in the drawRect method. Fixed that! I don’t think the thing is leaking memory, now – I have run it through Object Alloc. Do I need to explore multithreading now? (Yikes!)

Manufacturing NSPoints? They’re either statically or automatically allocated, so you won’t be leaking memory unless you were allocating memory for them with something in the malloc(3) family. –BenStiglitz

Fixed the crashing-on-resize problem by initializing the displacement transform in awakeFromNib. This falls down a little when the view is resized because the bounds are updated. This is a little tougher to fix, which I suppose I could do by caching the old bounds, translating back by the old bounds, and translating by the new bounds. A better way is probably to use notifications or a delegate method when the window resizes - I guess I could make my custom view the window’s delegate.

To put a humorous spin on it, this all feels a little like learning how to whistle… perhaps such learning is best done out of earshot of others?

Why? Anyone else with the same questions or going through the same process would find it immensely helpful. Whistle away! Just tape up all glass to keep the shards from scattering …

To be helpful I’ll offer a robust and tidier (hopefully) solution – RbrtPntn

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h> @interface UFOView : NSView { float angle; NSBezierPath *path; } @end

//helper - gives center of rectangle static NSPoint MidRect(NSRect rect) { return NSMakePoint(NSMidX(rect), NSMidY(rect)); }

@implementation UFOView