HTML5 Canvas Cookbook

Feb 2012

#book
#canvas
#html5

HTML5 Canvas Cookbook is a new publication from Packt Publishing that discusses in detail the new drawing functionalities the HTML5 canvas element makes available. In the last few weeks, I've been looking at this book more closely, and since it's been a quite useful learning experience, I wanted to mention it here as well.

The book (which is available online here) is simple and well organized. It spends considerable time on both introductory topics and more advanced ones, so it will probably suit both beginners and more experienced programmers. The cookbook format is particularly helpful, providing practical recipes that you can immediately apply to your own projects.

Here's a list of the chapters available:

CHAPTER 1: GETTING STARTED WITH PATHS AND TEXT Introduction Drawing a line Drawing an arc Drawing a Quadratic curve Drawing a Bezier curve Drawing a zigzag Drawing a spiral Working with text Drawing 3D text with shadows Unlocking the power of fractals: Drawing a haunted tree

CHAPTER 2: SHAPE DRAWING AND COMPOSITES Introduction Drawing a rectangle Drawing a circle Working with custom shapes and fill styles Fun with Bezier curves: drawing a cloud Drawing transparent shapes Working with the context state stack to save and restore styles Working with composite operations Creating patterns with loops: drawing a gear Randomizing shape properties: drawing a field of flowers Creating custom shape functions: playing card suits Putting it all together: drawing a jet

CHAPTER 3: WORKING WITH IMAGES AND VIDEOS Introduction Drawing an image Cropping an image Copying and pasting sections of the canvas Working with video Getting image data Introduction to pixel manipulation: inverting image colors Inverting video colors Converting image colors to grayscale Converting a canvas drawing into a data URL Saving a canvas drawing as an image Loading the canvas with a data URL Creating a pixelated image focus

CHAPTER 4: MASTERING TRANSFORMATIONS Introduction Translating the canvas context Rotating the canvas context Scaling the canvas context Creating a mirror transform Creating a custom transform Shearing the canvas context Handling multiple transforms with the state stack Transforming a circle into an oval Rotating an image Drawing a simple logo and randomizing its position, rotation, and scale

CHAPTER 5: BRINGING THE CANVAS TO LIFE WITH ANIMATION Introduction Creating an Animation class Creating a linear motion Creating acceleration Creating oscillation Oscillating a bubble Swinging a pendulum Animating mechanical gears Animating a clock Simulating particle physics Creating microscopic life forms Stressing the canvas and displaying the FPS

CHAPTER 6: INTERACTING WITH THE CANVAS: ATTACHING EVENT LISTENERS TO SHAPES AND REGIONS Introduction Creating an Events Class Working With Canvas Mouse Coordinates Attaching Mouse Event Listeners to Regions Attaching Touch Event Listeners to Regions on a Mobile Device Attaching Event Listeners to Images Dragging-And-Dropping Shapes Dragging-And-Dropping Images Creating an Image Magnifier Creating a Drawing Application

CHAPTER 7: CREATING GRAPHS AND CHARTS Introduction Creating a pie chart Creating a bar chart Graphing equations Plotting data points with a line chart

CHAPTER 8: SAVING THE WORLD WITH GAME DEVELOPMENT Introduction Creating sprite sheets for the heroes and enemies Creating level images and boundary maps Creating an Actor class for the hero and enemies Creating a Level class Creating a Health Bar class Creating a Controller class Creating a Model class Creating a View class Setting up the HTML document and starting the game

CHAPTER 9: INTRODUCING WEBGL Introduction Creating a WebGL wrapper to simplify the WebGL API Creating a triangular plane Rotating a triangular plane in 3D space Creating a rotating cube Adding textures and lighting Creating a 3D world that you can explore

The last chapters about animations and game development are probably the most interesting ones, especially since they all include detailed walkthroughs of the techniques discussed. Here's an example from Chapter 5, 'Oscillating a bubble':

[inline]

[script type="text/javascript"]

Animation.prototype.getContext = function(){ return this.context; };

Animation.prototype.getCanvas = function(){ return this.canvas; };

Animation.prototype.clear = function(){ this.context.clearRect(0, 0, this.canvas.width, this.canvas.height); };

Animation.prototype.setDrawStage = function(func){ this.drawStage = func; };

Animation.prototype.isAnimating = function(){ return this.animating; };

Animation.prototype.getFrame = function(){ return this.frame; };

Animation.prototype.start = function(){ this.animating = true; var date = new Date(); this.startTime = date.getTime(); this.lastTime = this.startTime; if (this.drawStage !== undefined) { this.drawStage(); } this.animationLoop(); };

Animation.prototype.stop = function(){ this.animating = false; }; Animation.prototype.getTimeInterval = function(){ return this.timeInterval; };

Animation.prototype.getTime = function(){ return this.t; };

Animation.prototype.getFps = function(){ return this.timeInterval > 0 ? 1000 / this.timeInterval : 0; };

Animation.prototype.animationLoop = function(){ var that = this; this.frame++; var date = new Date(); var thisTime = date.getTime(); this.timeInterval = thisTime - this.lastTime; this.t += this.timeInterval; this.lastTime = thisTime; if (this.drawStage !== undefined) { this.drawStage(); } if (this.animating) { requestAnimFrame(function(){ that.animationLoop(); }); } };

window.onload = function(){ // instantiate new animation object var anim = new Animation("myCanvas"); var context = anim.getContext(); var canvas = anim.getCanvas(); anim.setDrawStage(function(){ // update var widthScale = Math.sin(this.getTime() / 200) * 0.1 + 0.9; var heightScale = -1 * Math.sin(this.getTime() / 200) * 0.1 + 0.9;

// clear this.clear(); //draw context.beginPath(); context.save(); context.translate(canvas.width / 2, canvas.height / 2); context.scale(widthScale, heightScale); context.arc(0, 0, 65, 0, 2 * Math.PI, false); context.restore(); context.fillStyle = "#8ED6FF"; context.fill(); context.lineWidth = 2; context.strokeStyle = "#555"; context.stroke(); context.beginPath(); context.save(); context.translate(canvas.width / 2, canvas.height / 2); context.scale(widthScale, heightScale); context.arc(-30, -30, 15, 0, 2 * Math.PI, false); context.restore(); context.fillStyle = "white"; context.fill(); }); anim.start(); };

[/script]

[/inline]

In a nutshell, this is what's going on (note that the 'animation' library is discussed in a previous chapter of the book):

HTML5 Canvas Cookbook

See also: