Turtle

By Martin McBride, 2021-06-14
Tags: geometry image
Categories: generativepy generative art


The Turtle class implements a simple turtle graphics system.

Turtle graphics

You will probably be familiar with turtle graphics. The idea is that you have a graphics cursor that can draw lines as it moves around.

The cursor has an (x, y) position, and also a direction it is pointing in (the heading). The you can tell the turtle to move forward by a certain distance, or to turn through a certain angle to the left or right. By issuing a series of instructions, you can draw various shapes.

To allow for recursive drawing (to create fractal images) turtle graphics can push the current state onto a stack. At some later stage it can pop its previous state (position and heading) and continue from there.

The turtle can also move to different place without drawing anything.

It is possible to change the colour, thickness and dash style of the lines the turtle draws.

More than one turtle can be active at the same time, simply by creating more than one turtle object.

Turtle class methods

The Turtle is not derived for Shape, so it doesn't inherit any of its methods.

It has the following methods:

  • forward
  • left
  • right
  • set_heading
  • move
  • move_to
  • set_style
  • push
  • pop

Constructor

The Turtle constructor accepts a context object (similar to Shape objects):

Turtle(ctx)

The turtle will be created with the following settings:

  • Position (0, 0) is the current user space.
  • Heading 0 (ie facing along the positive going x-axis).
  • Line style black, width 1 unit, solid line.

forward

Moves the turtle forward, in the direction of its current heading, by the specified distance.

forward(position)
Parameter Type Description
distance number The distance to move forward.

The turtle will move distance units in the direction of its current heading.

It will draw a line from its current position to its new position.

Its current position will be changed to the new position.

left

Rotates the turtle heading left by angle.

left(angle)
Parameter Type Description
angle number The angle to turn.

The turtle will rotate its heading left by angle. The turtle will not move, or draw anything. However, it will end up pointing is a new direction, and that will affect any forward or move calls.

The angle is measured in radians.

Turning left is equivalent to rotating counter-clockwise.

right

Rotates the turtle heading right by angle.

right(angle)
Parameter Type Description
angle number The angle to turn.

The turtle will rotate its heading right by angle. The turtle will not move, or draw anything. However, it will end up pointing is a new direction, and that will affect any forward or move calls.

The angle is measured in radians.

Turning right is equivalent to rotating clockwise.

set_heading

Rotates the turtle heading to a specific angle.

set_heading(angle)
Parameter Type Description
angle number The angle to set.

The turtle will rotate its heading to an absolute angle. This is equivalent to:

  • Setting the heading to zero.
  • Then executing right(angle).

The turtle will not move, or draw anything. However, it will end up pointing is a new direction, and that will affect any forward or move calls.

The angle is measured in radians.

move

Moves the turtle forward, in the direction of its current heading, by the specified distance, but without drawing anything.

move(position)
Parameter Type Description
distance number The distance to move forward.

The turtle will move distance units in the direction of its current heading.

It will move without drawing anything. move is exactly like forward except that it doesn't draw anything.

Its current position will be changed to the new position.

move_to

Moves the turtle to a specific (x, y) position, but without drawing anything.

move_to(x, y)
Parameter Type Description
x number x position
y number y position

The turtle will move to the position (x, y). It will not darw anything, and its crrent heading will not change.

Its current position will be changed to the new position.

set_style

Moves the turtle to a specific (x, y) position, but without drawing anything.

set_style(color=Color(0), line_width=1, dash=None, cap=SQUARE)
Parameter Type Description
color Color line colour
line_width number line width, in user units
dash list or None dash pattern
cap cap style line cap style

Sets the style of the lines drawn by the turtle.

The parameters are the same as the parameters used by the stroke method of Shape objects.

push

Moves the turtle state on a stack.

push()

The current turtle position, heading and line style will be pushed onto an internal stack. The turtle state will not be changed.

push

Retrieves the turtle state from stack.

push()

You can save the state multiple times by calling push multiple times. Calling pop multiple times will restore previous stored states from the newest to the oldest.

Example code

For example code see the turtle article in the tutorial.

See also

If you found this article useful, you might be interested in the book NumPy Recipes or other books by the same author.

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