Develop Reference

p5.js canvas drawing path with ellipses

I am working on a real time canvas drawing webapp using socket.io, node.js, and p5.js. I am having trouble creating a smooth line when the mouse is dragged. If the mouse is dragged too fast there is a trail of empty space in between each ellipse. The end goal here is to create a smooth path. Here are the things I have tried so far:
Attempt 1:
noStroke();
fill(lineColor[0],lineColor[1],lineColor[2]);
ellipse(mouseX, mouseY, lineThickness, lineThickness);
Attempt 2:
strokeWeight(lineThickness);
line(mouseX,mouseY);
stroke(lineColor[0],lineColor[1],lineColor[2]);
Here is a picture of what the issue looks like:
canvas drawing incomplete path image
any feedback is welcome; thanks!

Kevin's answer is great because it will be more efficient to draw lines instead of many ellipses. You should also look into:
beginShape()/endShape()
bezierVertex()
curveVertex()
curvePoint()
The above should help you draw a smooth path and setting a thicker stroke will looks as it many filled ellipses are connected forming the path.
If for some reason you do want to draw many ellipses, you can interpolate position when the mouse move faster and create gaps to fill those gaps.
For more information and p5.js example, check out this answer:
Processing: Draw vector instead of pixels

You could use the pmouseX and pmouseY variables, which hold the previous position of the cursor. Use that to draw a line from the previous position to the current position to fill in the blank space between mouse events.
From the reference:
// Move the mouse across the canvas to leave a trail
function setup() {
//slow down the frameRate to make it more visible
frameRate(10);
}
function draw() {
background(244, 248, 252);
line(mouseX, mouseY, pmouseX, pmouseY);
print(pmouseX + " -> " + mouseX);
}
<script src="https://github.com/processing/p5.js/releases/download/0.5.11/p5.js"></script>

html5 canvas img goes behind other drawn objects

I am creating a html5 canvas game and the main idea is that there is a loop at every animation that redraws everything on my canvas in every frame.
For some reason the objects drawn don't appear in the order i want them to. i want the background image first, then a rectangle and finally an other image to be shown on top of each other.However, the rectangle blocks the view of the second image not other way around.
my relevant code:
function playerdraw(p){
ctx.rect(p.x,p.y,100,150);
ctx.stroke();
//irrelevant stuff here...
ctx.drawImage(p.im,p.x,p.y+25,100,100);
}
I run the whole thing on window.onload so image loading shoudn't be a problem.
Why is this happening?

(as you haven't provided enough code, I assume this could be the issue.)
You need to redraw the background image each time you run the playerdraw() function (if you're clearing the entire canvas each time). So, the following code should work :
function playerdraw(p) {
// clear entire canvas
ctx.clearRect(...);
// draw background image
ctx.drawImage(...);
// draw rectangle
ctx.rect(p.x, p.y, 100, 150);
ctx.stroke();
// irrelevant stuff here...
// draw other image
ctx.drawImage(p.im, p.x, p.y + 25, 100, 100);
}
Note: You need to clear the entire canvas at the very beginning (if you're doing so). There's is also a possibility that you're doing some kind of canvas translating or scaling stuff which if done in wrong order, things can get pretty messed up.

I now know what my issue was. I forgot to add
ctx.beginPath();
in my code. I called my function again and again and it drew more rectangles then I wanted to. I feel so silly.

Javascript & Canvas: Draw and delete lines to create a "breathing" circle

I would like to create an element, that shows a red circle. Once the user clicks on it, she can record her voice. In order to show the LIVE mode, I'd like to make the circle "breath" according to the incoming frequencies.
I'm experimenting with a <canvas> element. That means it creates a circle that gets bigger and smaller, depending on the variable arcrad. However, the lines are being drawn correctly, but they do not disappear afterwards. I tried to apply .clip() but can't get it to work...
if (arcrad <= 10) arcrad = 10;
analyserContext.beginPath();
analyserContext.arc(100,120,arcrad,0,2*Math.PI);
analyserContext.closePath();
analyserContext.lineWidth = 2;
analyserContext.strokeStyle = 'red';
analyserContext.stroke();
Any ideas - or completely different strategies for this use case?

Canvas will overdraw by default. For your animation you’ll need to clean the canvas at the start of each frame. Use something the following at the start of your drawing function:
analyserContext.clearRect(0,0,200,200);
assuming your canvas is 200 pixels wide and high. It’s worth pointing out that sometimes you don’t want to completely clear the animation field every frame. For example, if you were to draw a semi transparent rectangle over the frame at the beginning (instead of clearing it) then you’d end up with a basic ‘bullet time’ style effect.

It's a normal behavior. Once something it's drawn on the canvas, it's there forever. You have to think like if you were painting something: what has been done cannot be undone.
Luckily, you still have solutions:
1) redraw another circle on top of the first one with the background color. It's really not the recommend way, but it still can be useful
2) use clearRect method (see How to clear the canvas for redrawing)

There are numerous ways to clear a canvas pre drawing to create animation:
How to clear the canvas for redrawing
simplest in my mind:
canvas.width=canvas.width;
though can equally use clearRect (which is actually quicker and won't reset the entire canvas if that is an issue regarding transforms etc!) over the region or whole canvas.
Get the likes of:
http://jsfiddle.net/dw17jxee/

bezier curve creation dynamically?

I am trying to achieve grass like bend on a straight line created by using Cubic bezier curve.I have created a straight line using Bezier curve and now i want to bend it from top.But the problem I am facing is I am not able to do it dynamically.The moment I use mousemove for creating the bend,series of curves appear giving the canvas a paint like look which is somthing I dont want.I just want a single curved line.My question is how do I clear the previous lines that have been drawn and restore the latest bended curve??
My CODE:here is my code if you want to have a look at it

Create two canvases stacked on top of each other:
The first one containing the static content, the other only the dynamic content.
This way you will only need to be concerned about clearing the area the grass was drawn in (and this is much faster too as there is no need to redraw static all the time).
Place the two canvases inside a div which have position set to relative, then place the canvases using position set to absolute.
Now you can make a function to draw the static content (you will need to redraw it if the browser window gets resized etc.).
Record the area the grass is drawn within and clear only this (for each grass) in the next frame.
If this last is too complicated, just use a simple clear on the "dynamic" canvas:
ctxDyn.clear(0, 0, canvasDyn.width, canvasDyn.height);
This will also preserve transparency of this canvas, or "layer" if you like.
Use requestAnimationFrame to do the actual animation.
var isPlaying = true;
function animate() {
ctxDyn.clear(0, 0, canvasDyn.width, canvasDyn.height);
drawGrass(); //function to draw the actual grass
if (isPlaying) requestAnimationFrame(animate);
}
animate(); // start
The isPlaying is a flag you can toggle with a button on screen or something similar, to be able to stop the animation. See the link for requestAnimationFrame on how to make this cross-browser as this is still a "young" implementation.
dynCtx and dynCanvas can of course be called what you want.

You need to erase the current contents of the canvas before redrawing your updated "grass". This would involve redrawing everything else that is "static" on the canvas. For example:
function redraw() {
// Erase the current contents
ctx.fillStyle = 'white';
ctx.fill(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
// Draw the stuff that does not change from frame to frame
drawStaticContent();
// Draw the dynamic content
drawGrass();
}
In your mousemove event, update your grass curve information, then 'redraw'.

Animating a missile in HTML5/WinJS

I'm writing a game using HTML5/WinJS on Windows 8. I'm trying to produce the effect of a bullet or missile firing at something; however, I can't seem to get the object to go through another image in the background without trailing a border. My working theory is that the border I'm seeing is caused by using clearRect. Here's my code:
var moveBullet = function(missile) {
if (missile.Image == undefined || missile.Image == null) {
var image = new Image();
image.src = "/images/missileImg.png";
image.onload = function () {
canvasContext.clearRect(missile.PointX - (image.width / 2), missile.PointY, image.width, image.height);
missile.PointY += BULLET_SPEED;
canvasContext.drawImage(image, missile.PointX - (image.width / 2), missile.PointY);
};
} else {
canvasContext.clearRect(missile.PointX - (missile.Image.width / 2), missile.PointY, missile.Image.width, missile.Image.height);
missile.PointY += BULLET_SPEED;
canvasContext.drawImage(missile.Image, missile.PointX - (missile.Image.width / 2), missile.PointY);
}
}
Is there a way to achieve this effect without using clearRect, or a more efficient way of restoring the background as it moves past?

Make your clearRect area a few pixels larger than the missile image. Drawing on a canvas in general has some built-in anti-aliasing. This means that if you draw a line with one color, then draw the same line with the background color, you'll not remove the original line. Something similar might be happening here, in which case a few extra pixels should help.
That said, there's a caveat to be aware of here.
First, I assume the background is separate element from the canvas? It looks like it as you're not redrawing that part on the canvas itself.
The reason I ask is that making repeated calls to clearRect on the same canvas will eventually show performance problems. What happens is that every call to clearRect accumulates into a complex region within the canvas--essentially its transparency mask. So every time the canvas has to be rendered, which happens any time you change it, it has to process that transparent area. Gradually, as you leave more and more small clearRect trails across the canvas, this region will become more and more complex and performance will drop.
I did this experiment with the Blizzard demo on the IE Test Drive site once, where I wondered why the demo was clearing the entire canvas with every animation frame. So I tried just clearing the trail behind each snowflake (and made each one a little bigger as I suggest above, because I had trails). Seemed like the right thing to do, but the performance plummeted by several orders of magnitude. Asking around within the IE team, they confirmed the region behavior I describe.
So the best thing to do, actually, is to do a clearRect on the entire canvas with every frame, then redraw the missile and any other bits that you're animating. This may seem counter intuitive, but ends up working best and avoids all these glitches with pixel trails.