I have searched and haven't found anything really on how to draw spirals in canvas using JavaScript.
I thought it might be possible to do it with the bezier curve and if that didn't work use lineTo(), but that seemed a lot harder.
Also, to do that I'm guessing I would have to use trigonometry and graphing with polar coordinates and its been a while since I did that. If that is the case could you point me in the right direction on the math.
The following code approximates a spiral as a collection of quarters of a circle each with a slightly larger radius. It might look worse than an Archimedes spiral for small turning numbers but it should run faster.
function drawSpiral(ctx, centerx, centery, innerRadius, outerRadius, turns=2, startAngle=0){
ctx.save();
ctx.translate(centerx, centery);
ctx.rotate(startAngle);
let r = innerRadius;
let turns_ = Math.floor(turns*4)/4;
let dr = (outerRadius - innerRadius)/turns_/4;
let cx = 0, cy = 0;
let directionx = 0, directiony = -1;
ctx.beginPath();
let angle=0;
for(; angle < turns_*2*Math.PI; angle += Math.PI/2){
//draw a quarter arc around the center point (x, cy)
ctx.arc( cx, cy, r, angle, angle + Math.PI/2);
//move the center point and increase the radius so we can draw a bigger arc
cx += directionx*dr;
cy += directiony*dr;
r+= dr;
//rotate direction vector by 90 degrees
[directionx, directiony] = [ - directiony, directionx ];
}
//draw the remainder of the last quarter turn
ctx.arc( cx, cy, r, angle, angle + 2*Math.PI*( turns - turns_ ))
ctx.stroke();
ctx.restore();
}
Result:
