{"id":269,"date":"2011-11-17T03:06:51","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T11:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.joyofprocessing.com\/blog\/?p=269"},"modified":"2011-11-20T16:51:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T00:51:48","slug":"how-to-draw-the-canadian-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyofprocessing.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/how-to-draw-the-canadian-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Draw the Canadian Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is one a series of posts on how to draw world flags. Finding the specifications for these flags, and attempting to reproduce the flag perfectly, according to the specifications, is a great way to teach yourself basic graphics programming.<\/p>\n

Previously: USA<\/a><\/p>\n

There are two ways to produce a Canadian flag (or any complicated flag) in Processing: The easy way, and the incredibly hard way. Of course I chose the latter, but let’s start with the easy way:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you’re a noob (or simply not a masochist), then what you want to do is grab an SVG of the flag (or maybe just grab a maple leaf). Here’s one from Wikipedia<\/a>. Drop that in the data folder of your sketch, and then paste in the following code.<\/p>\n

\r\nsize(400,200);\r\nsmooth();\r\nPShape s = loadShape(\"Flag_of_Canada.svg\");\r\nshape(s,0,0,width,height);\r\n<\/pre>\n
That’s it!  Pretty simple, no?  If you’re not a masochist, read no further.<\/p>\n
Now, on to the pain…  <\/p>\n
I’m not thrilled with using SVG files to produce drawings in Processing.  It makes it hard to do things like change colors, or mess with other internal elements of the drawing.<\/p>\n
But I had a feeling the Canadian flag was going to be a pain-in-the-ass, and it was (although it  is significantly simpler than the Flag of Mexico!).  The advanced (non-SVG) sketch I eventually produced is this one: <\/p>\n
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