antoineleclair/Understanding-Bezier-Curve

Some feedback from a beginner

audionerd opened this issue · 3 comments

audionerd commented

It's been a while since I tackled quadratic Bézier curves, so this was a really nice refresher course!

I had a few suggestions that might make it easier to follow.

  • Could it explain, somehow, the relationships between colors and variables? For example, knowing that "green" was C1 and C2.
  • Could there be control of the animation to scrub t back and forth? The animation was very nice, but sometimes it went too fast for me to think. Pause, and scrub, would be helpful. Maybe using Tangle? http://worrydream.com/Tangle/
  • Could hovering on the variables in the text (e.g.: P1C and CP2) highlight their corresponding elements in the animation?

Where I really got lost was this:

"you mark a real point at t of the C1C2 line"

For some reason, I wasn't realizing that t was the purple dot. If there was some relationship (either via hover, or purple colored variable text, or both) I think it would assist in understanding.

All in all though, this is a great teaching tool. Thanks!

antoineleclair commented

Thanks for the comment. I'll try to add some of your suggestions at a later time.

audionerd commented

I did find an example of something kind of similar that uses Tangle:

http://demo.criticalmash.com/bezier/

But it lacks the clear explanation that your demo provides.

And I found another one with draggable points, but – again – not nearly as clear of an explanation.

http://www.jasondavies.com/animated-bezier/

It would be a fun project to mash those together, to get an "Explorable Explanation" (http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/) with the clarity of your explanation, but the interactivity of the other two.

I'd like to hack on something like that myself!

antoineleclair commented

I'll definitely add draggable points and a slider for t if I get enough time. I'm sure it would help a lot.