zero point nine

I’ve been getting comfortable with Processing over the last few days by experimenting with what else but … particles. The three-dimensional patterns that emerge by moving the sliders to change the internal parameters can be quite complex and unexpected, and sometimes strange attractor-like.

The algorithm governing the particle motion is very straightforward. New particles are created with a starting orientation which rotates linearly on 2 axes over time. On each frame, a given amount of x, y, and z rotation is added to each particle and then the particle is translated according to its orientation by a steadily increasing distance.

Click on the buttons in the bottom right corner to change the order that the x, y, and z rotations are applied (which creates very different results from each other). The 3 sliders on top-left control the amount of rotation added per frame; the two sliders in the middle control the rate of ’spin’ for the initial orientation of new particles; and the slider on the right controls the ’speed’ that particles move away from the point of origin.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Processing experiments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.