Is there a built-in Mac OS facility to utilize bezier curves?

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Is there a way in Mac OS X to directly render a shape from a list of paths? I’m currently using Adobe Illustrator, which works, but this creates a dependency that would be nice to remove. Thanks, in advance, for any and all suggestions.

#2

Hello.

It is not very easy, but you can write a Post Script script, and get an eps image, or pdf for that matter as a result.

Google is your friend…

#3

I did a web search before posting and found no useful information related to (apple)scripting a bezier curve. Specifically, I don’t want to generate a file, but render an image using given coordinates. Perhaps this is something better served to do in Processing or Nodebox.

#4

You can do it using AppleScriptObjC.

#5

Hi, Shane. I’ve not dabbled with ASOC because I only recently purchased a machine new enough to use it. Would your explorer guide cover (or introduce) the topic I’m posting about? Thanks.

#6

No, it doesn’t cover NSBezierPath directly. It’s a bit lower-level than the stuff I cover, but it’s also not rocket science. What are you wanting to do, exactly?

#7

Part of what I’m doing is using applescript to generate organic patterns based on various math computations. Here is an image of one of my early results:

#8

Well the actual bezier stuff is pretty similar to PostScript – for example:

	set theBez to current application's NSBezierPath's bezierPath()
	theBez's setLineWidth:4.0
	theBez's moveToPoint:{x:1, y:1}
	theBez's lineToPoint:{x:100, y:100}
	theBez's curveToPoint:{x:200, y:300} controlPoint1:{x:100, y:300} controlPoint2:{x:200, y:400}
	current application's NSColor's redColor()'s setStroke()
	theBez's stroke()

But you’d probably want to do that in the content of an ASObjC-based app made in Xcode.

Alternatively, I think you might be able to do some of the is with Satimage.

#9

Thanks, Shane, for the sample code. I will probably end up buying your guide to learn and tinker around some more with this; I’ve only ever used Xcode with ASS.

#10

Mark,

I would take a long look at Smile. It’s designed to do complex renders amongst other things.

I have not used it for this purpose, so the best place to ask would be the Smile-Users-List: sul-subscribe@satimage.fr