Waves
Sample a sine across the width and shut it along the bottom edge: the curve becomes a mass. Stack several of them, walking their baselines down the frame and deepening their tone as they come forward, and the surface reads as water seen from the shore.
Example
<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
use Atelier\Field\Field;
require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';
echo Field::waves(width: 360, height: 240, layers: 5, seed: 1)->toSvg();
The figures use this 360 by 240 example and its explicit seed. Only the display colour is changed to the documentation accent. Each variant changes only the setting in its caption.
Options
| Setting | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
width |
none | area to cover, in user units |
height |
none | area to cover, in user units |
layers |
5 |
bands in the stack, 1 to 24; more bands means a shallower step between them |
seed |
1 |
amplitude, frequency and phase of every band |
withTheme(Theme) |
Theme::default() |
colours, in one call |
withColor(string) |
currentColor |
the ink the bands are painted with |
withBackground(?string) |
none | a ground behind the drawing |
withOpacity(?float) |
none | opacity of the whole drawing at once |
Amplitude is taken as a fraction of the height, so a band keeps its proportion when the frame changes. Frequency is counted over the width, which is why a wide frame shows the same number of crests as a narrow one and the swell stretches instead of repeating.
Variants
One setting moved, the rest held: layers is the stack, seed is the water.
layers: 2. Two bands instead of five. The ramp runs from 0.18 to 0.80 whatever the count, so a short stack shows both of its ends at once.layers: 12. Twelve bands over the same height. The step between two tones falls to about 0.06, and the stack reads as one graded mass.seed: 6. The same five bands, another draw. The seed sets amplitude, frequency and phase, so the water changes and the stack stays.Depth, by colour or by tone
A theme carrying a palette supplies band colours, read back to front and cycled when there are more bands than entries. The foreground does not override these palette fills.
use Atelier\Field\Theme;
Field::waves(360, 240)->withTheme(Theme::blueprint());
With no palette, the bands share one ink and are separated by opacity alone, from 0.18 at the back to 0.80 at the front. That is what keeps a single colour readable as several planes.
Field::waves(360, 240)->withColor('#0067a0');
The palette is a ramp rather than a set of series colours: colours picked to be told apart read as stripes, colours that run in one direction read as distance.