Generative Art

Lately my programming has focused on creating generative art. It sparked from a post on ComputerArts.co.uk (link here).

My current project is trying to simulate Lichtenberg Figures, which are basically electrical discharge patterns. My program creates a bunch of particles that all attract one another, and will merge when they get close enough to each other. It works really well at first, but once the number of particles is down near 1000 or so, they don't run into each other enough, and they just trace a mess of lines over the top of what was looking really cool just two seconds earlier.

So, you can see, I'm still working out the kinks.

The code library is on github.

AS3 - Big Canvas class

ActionScript 3's bitmap object is limited by size. For display, this is almost always sufficient. But any time you need a larger bitmap, such as to make a large, print-quality generative artwork, it falls short.

Keith of Bit-101 has a solution. He wrote his own "Big Ass Canvas" class that can do many of the same things a regular bitmap can without the size limitation. It works by stitching several bitmap objects together.

Edit: This class does not seem to have a method for encoding the giant bitmap as JPEG or PNG image files.

Computerless

I recently took my laptop in for repairs under the coverage plan I bought along with the laptop. After two long weeks I got my laptop back. Although the damaged hinge was repaired, there was a new problem: the power button was only working intermittently. That is, sometimes if I pressed it, it would turn the computer on/off, and sometimes I could press it several times without any effect.

Then, to top it all off, the day after I got it back, I dropped the laptop on its power cord jack, breaking the jack inside the computer. So I had my computer back for a few hours, then I had to take it back in for repairs a second time.

Currently my laptop is still in the shop, though I should be getting it back any day now.