I've provided a runnable code snippet below that uses Snap.svg and that I believe demonstrates one solution to your problem. With respect to trying to find the best way to morph a starting shape into an ending shape, this algorithm essentially rotates the points of the starting shape one position at a time, sums the squares of the distances between corresponding points on the (rotated) starting shape and the (unchanged) ending shape, and finds the minimum of all those sums. i.e. It's basically a least squares approach. The minimum value identifies the rotation that, as a first guess, will provide the "shortest" morph trajectories. In spite of these coordinate reassignments, however, all 'rotations' should result in visually identical starting shapes, as required.
This is, of course, a "blind" mathematical approach, but it might help provide you with a starting point before doing manual visual analysis. As a bonus, even if you don't like the rotation that the algorithm chose, it also provides the path 'd' attribute strings for all the other rotations, so some of that work has already been done for you.
You can modify the snippet to provide any starting and ending shapes you want. The limitations are as follows:
- Each shape should have the same number of points (although the point types, e.g. 'lineto', 'cubic bezier curve', 'horizontal lineto', etc., can completely vary)
- Each shape should be closed, i.e. end with "Z"
- The morph desired should involve only translation. If scaling or rotation is desired, those should be applied after calculating the morph based only on translation.
By the way, in response to some of your comments, while I find Snap.svg intriguing, I also find its documentation to be somewhat lacking.
Update: The code snippet below works in Firefox (Mac or Windows) and Safari. However, Chrome seems to have trouble accessing the Snap.svg library from its external web site as written (<script...github...>). Opera and Internet Explorer also have problems. So, try the snippet in the working browsers, or try copying the snippet code as well as the Snap library code to your own computer. (Is this an issue of accessing third party libraries from within the code snippet? And why browser differences? Insightful comments would be appreciated.)
var
s = Snap(),
colors = ["red", "blue", "green", "orange"], // colour list can be any length
staPath = s.path("M25,35 l-15,-25 C35,20 25,0 40,0 L80,40Z"), // create the "start" shape
endPath = s.path("M10,110 h30 l30,20 C30,120 35,135 25,135Z"), // create the "end" shape
staSegs = getSegs(staPath), // convert the paths to absolute values, using only cubic bezier
endSegs = getSegs(endPath), // segments, & extract the pt coordinates & segment strings
numSegs = staSegs.length, // note: the # of pts is one less than the # of path segments
numPts = numSegs - 1, // b/c the path's initial 'moveto' pt is also the 'close' pt
linePaths = [],
minSumLensSqrd = Infinity,
rotNumOfMin,
rotNum = 0;
document.querySelector('button').addEventListener('click', function() {
if (rotNum < numPts) {
linePaths.forEach(function(linePath) {linePath.remove();}); // erase any previous coloured lines
var sumLensSqrd = 0;
for (var ptNum = 0; ptNum < numPts; ptNum += 1) { // draw new lines, point-to-point
var linePt1 = staSegs[(rotNum + ptNum) % numPts]; // the new line begins on the 'start' shape
var linePt2 = endSegs[ ptNum % numPts]; // and finished on the 'end' shape
var linePathStr = "M" + linePt1.x + "," + linePt1.y + "L" + linePt2.x + "," + linePt2.y;
var linePath = s.path(linePathStr).attr({stroke: colors[ptNum % colors.length]}); // draw it
var lineLen = Snap.path.getTotalLength(linePath); // calculate its length
sumLensSqrd += lineLen * lineLen; // square the length, and add it to the accumulating total
linePaths[ptNum] = linePath; // remember the path to facilitate erasing it later
}
if (sumLensSqrd < minSumLensSqrd) { // keep track of which rotation has the lowest value
minSumLensSqrd = sumLensSqrd; // of the sum of lengths squared (the 'lsq sum')
rotNumOfMin = rotNum; // as well as the corresponding rotation number
}
show("ROTATION OF POINTS #" + rotNum + ":"); // display info about this rotation
var rotInfo = getRotInfo(rotNum);
show(" point coordinates: " + rotInfo.ptsStr); // show point coordinates
show(" path 'd' string: " + rotInfo.dStr); // show 'd' string needed to draw it
show(" sum of (coloured line lengths squared) = " + sumLensSqrd); // the 'lsq sum'
rotNum += 1; // analyze the next rotation of points
} else { // once all the rotations have been analyzed individually...
linePaths.forEach(function(linePath) {linePath.remove();}); // erase any coloured lines
show(" ");
show("BEST ROTATION, i.e. rotation with lowest sum of (lengths squared): #" + rotNumOfMin);
// show which rotation to use
show("Use the shape based on this rotation of points for morphing");
$("button").off("click");
}
});
function getSegs(path) {
var absCubDStr = Snap.path.toCubic(Snap.path.toAbsolute(path.attr("d")));
return Snap.parsePathString(absCubDStr).map(function(seg, segNum) {
return {x: seg[segNum ? 5 : 1], y: seg[segNum ? 6 : 2], seg: seg.toString()};
});
}
function getRotInfo(rotNum) {
var ptsStr = "";
for (var segNum = 0; segNum < numSegs; segNum += 1) {
var oldSegNum = rotNum + segNum;
if (segNum === 0) {
var dStr = "M" + staSegs[oldSegNum].x + "," + staSegs[oldSegNum].y;
} else {
if (oldSegNum >= numSegs) oldSegNum -= numPts;
dStr += staSegs[oldSegNum].seg;
}
if (segNum !== (numSegs - 1)) {
ptsStr += "(" + staSegs[oldSegNum].x + "," + staSegs[oldSegNum].y + "), ";
}
}
ptsStr = ptsStr.slice(0, ptsStr.length - 2);
return {ptsStr: ptsStr, dStr: dStr};
}
function show(msg) {
var m = document.createElement('pre');
m.innerHTML = msg;
document.body.appendChild(m);
}
pre {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/snap.svg/0.4.1/snap.svg-min.js"></script>
<p>Best viewed on full page</p>
<p>Coloured lines show morph trajectories for the points for that particular rotation of points. The algorithm seeks to optimize those trajectories, essentially trying to find the "shortest" cumulative routes.</p>
<p>The order of points can be seen by following the colour of the lines: red, blue, green, orange (at least when this was originally written), repeating if there are more than 4 points.</p>
<p><button>Click to show rotation of points on top shape</button></p>
