How do you find a point at a given perpendicular distance from a line?

Question

I have a line that I draw in a window and I let the user drag it around. So, my line is defined by two points: (x1,y1) and (x2,y2). But now I would like to draw \"caps\" at

Answer 1

If you want to avoid a sqrt, do the following:

in: line_length, cap_length, rotation, position of line centre

define points:
  tl (-line_length/2, cap_length)
  tr (line_length/2, cap_length)
  bl (-line_length/2, -cap_length)
  br (line_length/2, -cap_length)

rotate the four points by 'rotation'
offset four points by 'position'

drawline (midpoint tl,bl to midpoint tr,br)
drawline (tl to bl)
drawline (tr to br)