Line Plotting Pixel by Pixel

It’s difficult to appreciate what goes on mathematically behind the scenes of high-level drawing methods, such as those used by Pygame methods, unless you’ve written a program to plot objects pixel by pixel – because when it comes down to it, this is how the methods produce their rendered results. To that end, we are going to explore a little deeper the techniques involved in drawing a line pixel by pixel onto the screen. At first, you might assume this is quite a simple thing to do, but you’ll soon discover that it’s quite complex.

As we progress through the content, it will become clear why special algorithms are required to draw mathematical constructs such as lines on a pixel display. The algorithm we are going to explore is also a key technique that can be used for various other graphics and game-related functions wherever straight-line calculations are needed.

Once you’ve completed this chapter, you...