I ended up using the following scheme to generate a dashed line.
I resorted to generating short line segments of constant length regardless of orientation of start end point (slope of line).
How I generated the short line segments for sloped line of equal length was in several steps.
Algorithm
0) Initialize dashLen to an arbitrary value so that we increment to
2x dashlen on each iteration of loop to cause empty holes to appear in
line
1) Calculate length of line d=sqrt(dx*dx+dy*dy)
2) Calculate negative slope since in the y axis is flipped (Y increases as points traverse screen space in downward direction)
3) Loop $x and $y and
increment $y such that
$y += 2*$dashLen*sin(atan($m));
$x -= 2*$dashLen*cos(atan($m));
4) Update endpoints
$endY = $startY + (($dashLen)*sin(atan($m)));
$endX = $startX - (($dashLen)*cos(atan($m)));
5) Draw Line Segments (dashes)
Code Snippet
$d = sqrt(pow($toY-$fromY, 2) + pow($toX-$fromX, 2));
if ($toX != $fromX)
{
$m = ($toY-$fromY)/($fromX-$toX);
$dashLen = 2;
for ($y = $fromY, $x = $fromX; $y < $toY || $x > $toX; $y += ((2*$dashLen*sin(atan($m)))), $x -= (2*$dashLen*cos(atan($m))))
{
$startX = $x;
$startY = $y;
$endY = $startY + (($dashLen)*sin(atan($m)));
$endX = $startX - (($dashLen)*cos(atan($m)));
$shape = $currentSlide->createLineShape($startX, $startY, $endX, $endY);
$color = new Color('FF000000');
$shape->getFill()
->setFillType(Fill::FILL_SOLID)
->setStartColor($color)
->setEndColor($color);
$shape->getBorder()
->setColor($color)->setLineWidth(2)
->setLineStyle($this->getCategoryLine($category));
}
}
else
{
$dashLen = 2;
for ($y = $toY; $y > $fromY; $y -= 2*$dashLen)
{
$startX = $fromX;
$startY = $y;
$endX = $toX;
$endY = $y - ($dashLen);
$shape = $currentSlide->createLineShape($startX, $startY, $endX, $endY);
$color = new Color('FF000000');
$shape->getFill()
->setFillType(Fill::FILL_SOLID)
->setStartColor($color)
->setEndColor($color);
$shape->getBorder()
->setColor($color)->setLineWidth(2)
->setLineStyle();
}
}