# Text offset in generativepy

Martin McBride, 2022-01-04
Categories generativepy generativepy tutorial

The previous article explains how to use text in generativepy. In this article, we will look at offsetting text.

Text is often used to label particular points or lines on a diagram, and you will usually want the text to be close to a particular point but not right on top of it.

You can achieve this by changing the position of the point. However, the offset methods provide a convenient alternative.

from generativepy.drawing import make_image, setup
from generativepy.color import Color
from generativepy.geometry import Text, Circle, Line
import math

def draw_alpha(ctx, pixel_width, pixel_height, frame_no, frame_count):
setup(ctx, pixel_width, pixel_height, background=Color(1))

a = (100, 100)
Text(ctx).of("A", a).font("Arial").size(40).offset(20, 30).fill(Color(0))

b = (300, 100)
angle = math.pi*3/4
x = (b[0]+150*math.cos(angle), b[1]+150*math.sin(angle))
Line(ctx).of_start_end(b, x).stroke(Color('orange'), 4, dash=[5])
Text(ctx).of("B", b).font("Arial").size(40).offset_angle(angle, 100).fill(Color(0))

c = (500, 100)
d = (600, 50)
Line(ctx).of_start_end(c, d).stroke(Color('orange'), 4, dash=[5])
Text(ctx).of("C", c).font("Arial").size(40).offset_towards(d, 30).fill(Color(0))

make_image("text-offset.png", draw_alpha, 700, 200)


This code is available on github in tutorial/shapes/text-offset.py.

Here is the result:

The first block draws the letter A:

    a = (100, 100)
Text(ctx).of("A", a).font("Arial").size(40).offset(20, 30).fill(Color(0))


Here we draw a red circle at point a. We add the text letter A with a position a but an offset of (20, 30), which puts the letter slightly to the right and below the point. We are using the default text alignment of baseline, left, so the bottom left corner of the letter A would normally be right on the red dot.

We then draw the letter B:

    b = (300, 100)
angle = math.pi*3/4
x = (b[0]+150*math.cos(angle), b[1]+150*math.sin(angle))
Line(ctx).of_start_end(b, x).stroke(Color('orange'), 4, dash=[5])
Text(ctx).of("B", b).font("Arial").size(40).offset_angle(angle, 100).fill(Color(0))


This time we draw a red circle at point b. We add the text letter B at position b but use offset_angle to offset it. We place it at a distance of 100 from b, at an angle of 2 radians (which is about 120 degrees). The orange dashed line shows the angle, the text is shifted in that direction.

Finally we then draw the letter C:

    c = (500, 100)
d = (600, 50)
Line(ctx).of_start_end(c, d).stroke(Color('orange'), 4, dash=[5])

This time we draw a red circle at point c. We add the text letter C at position c but use offset_towards to offset it. We place it at a distance 50 from c, in the direction of point d = (600, 50). The line from c to d is shown in orange.
With offset_angle and offset_towards, you can use a negative offset value to move the text in the opposite direction.