Skeletal animation tool programming

Question

I'm looking into building a 2D skeletal animation tool where a person can add art assets and join to a bone created. What I'm having problem with is conceptualizing the beginning process of creating a single bone. I'm planning on using a canvas as the base for creating bones. The end result would be just to create two connecting bones, attach two images, then if I move on bone, the corresponding image will update its position/rotation accordingly.

What I'm looking for is how to achieve the basics. I understand that I first must create the shape of a bone (elongated tear drop) with an two anchors (a circle centered at at the base and point of the tear). I would like some conceptual input into achieving this.

Answer 1

Although a complete solution is beyond the scope of StackOverflow, such an application will need to support moveable, connected nodes. The example cited here illustrates the basic drawing and event handling. More elaborate libraries are cited here. Use AffineTransform to rotate a suitable connecting image, as shown here.