WPF: Connect UIControls with a rope which behaves physically correct (inspired by Pixelmator)

Question

Pixelmator [1] has a quite impressive GUI. So far I've just played a bit with it. If you are using a filter, which is applied to a part of a picture, the window in which the parameters of the filter can be set is connected with a rope to the concerning part of the image (see 2).

However I was wondering about two things. How do I implement in general something like this rope, currently I don't have an idea.. (how is the rope drawn? pixel by pixel?) It seems that the forces (such as g) are defined somehow and then the line of the rope is approximated. Finally I would like to implement this in WPF.

any ideas?

[1] http://www.pixelmator.com/

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq63zgFHEjg at 2:58

Answer 1

You need a physics engine.

Here's a managed one (haven't used it). You can approximate a rope by joint-ing together many small rigid segments.

Answer 2

Will is on the right track with his link to Farseer, I have used it, albiet briefly and it's brilliant. Within Farseer you can link objects see this farseer demo at 1:28, the source comes with the download on codeplex. Let me know how you get on, I'd love to see some good UI with Physics built in. Another example from MIT of what can be done with physics engines