Question

I’m writing a program that will draw the sine curve with canvas.
HTML:

<canvas id="mycanvas" width="1000" height="100">
    Your browser is not supported.
</canvas>

JavaScript:

var canvas = document.getElementById("mycanvas");
if (canvas.getContext) {
    var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
    ctx.lineWidth = 3;
    var x = 0,
        y = 0;
    var timeout = setInterval(function() {
        ctx.beginPath();
        ctx.moveTo(x, y);
        x += 1;
        y = 50 * Math.sin(0.1 * x) + 50;
        ctx.lineTo(x, y);
        ctx.stroke();
        if (x > 1000) {
            clearInterval(timeout);
        }
    }, 10);
}

This works really nice: http://jsfiddle.net/HhGnb/

However, now I can only offer say 100px for the canvas width, so only the leftest 100px of the curve could be seen. http://jsfiddle.net/veEyM/1/
I want to archive this effect: when the right point of the curve is bigger than the width of canvas, the whole curve could move left, so I can see the rightest point of the curve, it’s a bit like the curve is flowing to left. Can I do that?

Answer 1

One of the basic ideas of the <canvas> element is that the computer ‘forgets’ the drawing commands and only saves the pixels, like a bitmap. So to move everything to the left, you need to clear the canvas and draw everything again.

There is also one thing I’d like to advise you – you always start with x = 0 and y = 0, but obviously at x = 0 then y is not necessarily equal to 0 as well. EDIT: implemented this.

Anyway, I ended up with this code: http://jsfiddle.net/veEyM/5/

var canvas = document.getElementById("mycanvas");
var points = {}; // Keep track of the points in an object with key = x, value = y
var counter = 0; // Keep track when the moving code should start

function f(x) {
    return 50 * Math.sin(0.1 * x) + 50;
}

if (canvas.getContext) {
    var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
    ctx.lineWidth = 3;
    var x = 0,
        y = f(0);
    var timeout = setInterval(function() {
        if(counter < 100) { // If it doesn't need to move, draw like you already do
            ctx.beginPath();
            ctx.moveTo(x, y);
            points[x] = y;
            x += 1;
            y = f(x);
            ctx.lineTo(x, y);
            ctx.stroke();
            if (x > 1000) {
                clearInterval(timeout);
            }
        } else { // The moving part...
            ctx.clearRect(0, 0, 100, 100); // Clear the canvas
            ctx.beginPath();
            points[x] = y;
            x += 1;
            y = f(x);
            for(var i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
                // Draw all lines through points, starting at x = i + ( counter - 100 )
                // to x = counter. Note that the x in the canvas is just i here, ranging
                // from 0 to 100
                ctx.lineTo(i, points[i + counter - 100]);
            }
            ctx.stroke();
        }
        counter++;
    }, 10);
}