There may be some clever way to do this that is faster and easier, but you could always hack through it like this:
You know the distance formula: s=sqrt((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2). To apply this, you must find the x and y co-ordinates of the points where the line intersects the edges of each grid cell. You can do this by plugging the x and y co-ordinates of the boundaries of the cell into the equation of the line and solve for x or y as appropriate.
That is, each cell extends from some point (x0,y0) to (x0+1,y0+1). So we need to find y(x0), y(x0+1), x(y0), and x(y0+1). For each of these, the x or y value found may or may not be within the ranges for that co-ordinate for that cell. Specifically, two of them will be and two won't. The two that are correspond to the edges that the line passes through, and the two that aren't are edges that it doesn't pass through.
Okay, maybe this sounds pretty confusing, so let's work through an example.
Let's say your line has the equation x=2/3 * y. You want to know where it intersects the edges of the cell extending from (1,0) to (2,1).
Plug in x=1 and you get y=2/3. 2/3 is in the legal range for y -- 0 to 1 -- so (1,2/3) is a point on the edge where the line intersects this cell. Namely, the left edge.
Plug in x=2 and you get y=4/3. 4/3 is outside the range for y. So the line does not pass through the right edge.
Plug in y=0 and you get x=0. 0 is not in the range for x, so the line does not pass through the bottom edge.
Plug in y=1 and you get x=3/2. 3/2 is in the legal range for x, so (3/2,1) is another intersection point, on the top edge.
Thus, the two points where the line intersects the edges of the cell are (1,2/3) and (3/2,1). Plug these into the distance formula and you'll get the length of the line segement through this cell, namely sqrt((1-3/2)^2+(2/3-1)^2)=sqrt(1/4+1/9)=sqrt(13/36). You can approximate that to any desired level of precision.
To do this in a program you'd need something like: (I'll use pseudo code because I don't know what language you're using)
// Assuming y=mx+b
function y(x)
return mx+b
function x(y)
return (y-b)/m
// cellx, celly are co-ordinates of lower left corner of cell
// Upper right must therefore be cellx+1, celly+1
function segLength(cellx, celly)
// We'll create two arrays pointx and pointy to hold co-ordinates of intersect points
// n is index into these arrays
// In an object-oriented language, we'd create an array of point objects, but whatever
n=0
y1=y(cellx)
if y1>=celly and y1<=celly+1
pointx[n]=cellx
pointy[n]=y1
n=n+1
y2=y(cellx+1)
if y2>=celly and y2<=celly+1
pointx[n]=cellx+1
pointy[n]=y2
n=n+1
x1=x(celly)
if x1>=cellx and x1<=cellx+1
pointx[n]=x1
pointy[n]=celly
n=n+1
x2=x(celly+1)
if x2>=cellx and x2<=cellx+1
pointx[n]=x2
pointy[n]=celly+1
n=n+1
if n==0
return "Error: line does not intersect this cell"
else if n==2
return sqrt((pointx[0]-pointx[1])^2+(pointy[0]-pointy[1])^2)
else
return "Error: Impossible condition"
Well, I'm sure you could make the code a little cleaner, but that's the idea.
