Create a playful UI for non-technical users

[jasonwebb]

See Defaults.js for a list of global parameters that can be changed within sketches for different effects.

Feature wishlist

• Toggle type of venation - open or closed.
  • VenationType = values are either 'Open' or 'Closed'
• Draw simple primitive shapes and set them as either "bounds" or "obstacle" shapes
  • A simple MS Paint kind of interface would be just fine
  • These shapes would be Path objects assigned to the Network through the internal arrays network.bounds and network.obstacles
  • Auxin sources should only be allowed to spawn inside of bounds, and outside of obstacles. Sources may need to be reset when a bounds or obstacle is added or changed.
• Allow freehand drawing of bounds or obstacle shapes
  • Click and hold to draw shape
  • All paths must be closed, so maybe automatically connect the last point to the first point on mouse up
• Allow users to paint auxin sources with their mouse (these are what the veins grow towards)
• Toggle auxin flux canalization (vein thickening) (see EnableCanalization)
• Toggle opacity blending (see EnableOpacityBlending)
• Click to add root vein nodes
  • BONUS: integrate a color picker so veins can be colored differently
• Buttons to start, stop, or reset the simulation (see IsPaused and the resetNetwork() method in any sketch)
• Custom colors for background, veins, bounds, and obstacles
  • See Colors variable, which references objects stored in ColorPresets.js
• Buttons to toggle visibility of veins, bounds, obstacles, and other effects (see Defaults.js)
• Rendering style - either 'Lines' or 'Dots' (see VeinRenderMode)

Advanced features

• Attraction zone radius
  • See AttractionDistance
  • Smaller values can improve performance, but will also make things look slightly different.
• Kill zone radius
  • See KillDistance
  • Higher values tend to improve performance but creates visible gaps in the "closed" venation style.
• Vein thickness
  • See VeinThickness
• SVG export would be cool, but the current export process doesn't cope well with large vein networks, which happen a lot. If it can be improved, this would be a good feature to expose in the UI.