Creating Custom Replicator Views

CAReplicatorLayer is one of the more interesting toys in the Core Animation toolbox: feed it one or more sublayers (an image, a rendered shape, whatever) and it will copy – replicate – those sublayers and then do stuff with the copies in time and space.

I happen to think replicator layers are particularly well suited to audio-related interfaces because their visual properties in many ways parallel the cylical nature of music and sound.

There’s one thing, however, that CAReplicatorLayer can’t do, and that’s: provide you with direct access to the copies it creates. If that’s something your app requires, you’re going to have to roll your own version.