to obtain the direction of the line, you are better to use the <? atan2((y2-y1)/(x2-x1)) ?> function, since the regular atan function will only return arguments in the half-plane, ie. if y2-y1 and x2-x1 are negative, atan will give you an angle measurement less than 90 degrees, while it really should be between 180 and 270