Processing, it's just good stuff...

Processing is a great java-based platform for developing graphics and visualizations. Check out processing.org and start creating!

Visualization Problems

Here are the results of some visualization problems worked on by me and some of my friends. If you're interested in giving a crack at some of these then read the manifesto below and get in touch with me.

Connect

Connect two points (and don't use the random number function!)...

Orbits

Orbit several objects...

Sticky

Make something sticky...

Balance

Balance several objects...

Other Stuff I've Done

Here is some of the miscellaneous stuff I've done. I like math and computation based beauty, so I guess that's sort of a theme for these examples...

  • The Waiting Room was a piece created with some creative fine art students for my technology art class. Using Processing, it incorporated control of light intensity using the serial port, audio mixing, and brightness tracking using a webcam to give a viewer a unique auditory experience based on their location in a room.
  • Isolation and Connection is a piece that examines the way that space is occupied by isolation and connection.
  • Stroke1, Stroke2, Stroke3, and Stroke4 are experiments with recording strokes. Sort of a meditation on time, memory, and the architecture of neural memory banks.
  • Boids is my hack-job take on programming boids after reading Craig Reynold's site and being amazed. This one needs some refinement as my boids keep disappearing on me!
  • Peter de Jong Attractors are something I picked up on Paul Bourke's site. He's really smart (and not just because he's a Mac user!). Check out his chaos page, it's great (as is the rest of his site).
  • More Peter de Jong , this time an animation created by incrementing the input parameters. The red and blue are just mirrored images of the same values, I just did it that way because I think it looks nice. You probably need a decent CPU to run this, it works great on my 1.5GHz G4.
  • Clifford Attractors are similar to the Pete de Jong's, but this time I visualize only the last twenty calculated points and then connect them using some curves. This one is also interactive too, which I think is fun.
  • Okay this is the last attractor, I promise. This is one I sort of came up with. Well, knowing as little as I do about mathematics, I probably didn't come up with it, but I couldn't finding anything similar anywhere else so I'll claim it as mine for now. This one is neat because everything that pops out is rectangular, something that I think is pretty non-intuitive, but is also pretty amazing.
  • Bintype is a sketch I put together to play with the idea of symbolic representation. Type in a message and what pops out are ascii-equivalent values represented in binary notation. The binary is vertical and the message reads left to right as per normal (if you're normally a left to right reader). I like the fact that there still seems to be a grammar hidden inside the 1's and 0's.
  • Automata is yet another take on the whole cellular automata thing. This is kind of japanese-cartoon-seizuresque, but I think that it shows there are some possibilities for visualizing this kind of stuff in different ways. Wolfram is the big name in this stuff (and apparently he's also a big dick).

I should also mention that I've really been inspired by Jared Tarbell's work for a while now, so check him out (he also seems to like Paul Bourke (and Doug Hofstadter)). He also has a Flash site which is awesome.

What's a good website without a manifesto? Well here's mine...

This Site's Manifesto

Hello fellow artsy-farts and geeks, I thought that it would be fun to do some simple visualization stuff using Processing, the beautiful Java based language developed by some former MIT guys. I stole some ideas for the types of things we could visualize, simple things like:

  • connect two points (without using the random number function)
  • make two things attract each other
  • make something sticky
  • balance multiple objects
  • present 5 colours with 5 circles
I like these ideas because they are simple, but they are also very open ended. Good room for creative (brain stretching) interpretation. I was thinking that everyone could sort of work on one per week (or two weeks, or month, or whatever) and I could post what people put together on my website. Of course there's no real schedule or anything, and you can work on whatever you want, I'd be glad to post anything people come up with. And if there's something you like, or you want to explain what you did a bit, then email people. If you have an idea for a visualization then send it along too.

So how to play...First, forward this email to anyone you know who might be interested. Next go to processing.org and download the latest beta of the program. Look at some examples and start playing around. If you have any questions they have pretty good tutorials and references, and I've been messing around with it for a bit now, so I sort of know what's going on, but not really, but you can always email me and I can see if I can help. Now you're sitting there and thinking that this sounds kind of neat, but man, I've got no time! Okay, I understand this, I don't have any kids or anything like that so I guess I can't complain too much, but hey, if you do have some time then pop one of these out, if you don't have time but are interested in seeing what other people do then that's cool too.