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How do I represent tiles in XML?

So, I'm writing an AS3 program that tiles floor tiles. I want the user to be to be able to create their own floor schematic represented by different rectangles. It'll be drag-and-drop. They will lay out their schematic (which is composed of different size rectangular tiles) and drop colors/patterns onto them.

This schematic will then be tiled on a 3D plane to represent what the actual floor would look like.

I've got the 3D part working, drag-and-drop working, etc. What I'm missing is the floor schematic stuff. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best solution, but I can't QUITE get there.

Here are some examples (out of a WHOLE bunch of possible combinations) of how the floor schematics could look:

alt text

alt text

alt text

alt text

The different tiles within the schematic are the droppable regions. My problem: How can represent these schematics in XML? Don't worry about tiling, sizing, etc. I've got that all figured out already. I just literally do not know how I can represent a tile schematic in XML and draw it correctly with AS3. Any ideas?

Solution

  • It looks to me like your tiles really boil down to layouts on a grid. Given that, I would have the xml for the tile be comprised of a list of elements, each element would have properties for the row/column of the upper left square of the element, the row span and column span for that element, and the fill for that element. Something like this:

    <Tile>
    <Cell row="0" col="0" rowSpan="1" colSpan="4" fill="#a0a0a0"/>
    <Cell row="1" col="0" rowSpan="1" colSpan="4" fill="#b0b0b0"/>
    <Cell row="0" col="4" rowSpan="2" colSpan="2" fill="#c0c0c0"/>
    <Cell row="2" col="2" rowSpan="1" colSpan="4" fill="#a0a0a0"/>
    <Cell row="3" col="2" rowSpan="1" colSpan="4" fill="#b0b0b0"/>
    <Cell row="2" col="0" rowSpan="2" colSpan="2" fill="#c0c0c0"/>
</Tile>

    The above would represent your first example (I made up the colors though). Hope that helps.