Anthony Mattox Interaction Design + Digital Art

I created this Context Free Art script a few months ago and revisited it to tweak it a bit and make some nice high resolution renderings. This is a great illustration of what I find so fascinating about fractals. Computers are often considered the antithesis of organic growth, however, their incredible ability to replicate such processes seems to be in the very nature of object oriented programming. The complexity that can be formed from such simple rules and patterns continues to amaze me.

Although a mathematics purist may not willingly call this a fractal, it is in my opinion a prime example. I think Benoît Mandelbrot would agree with me. It is a mathematical function which, through a simple iterate system, fantastically mimics physical structures. It also has the properties of self similarity over infinite scale which is indicative of fractals.

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Working in 3d in Processing is all well and good but does have it’s limits in terms of rendering. To get a better rendering of three dimensional forms created with Processing it’s possible to export them to a file that a 3d modeling program can read. From my experience, the exported file isn’t perfect, but with a little work it can be turned into a nice model. A Processing script generated a 3d grid based on sound, the three axes representing amplitude, frequency, and time. Using the DXF library, I exported the model.

This raw data is a little bulky and has a few issues. All the segments of the form were separate objects. After importing the script into Blender (a free 3d modeling and animation program) I selected all the objects, joined them, and then in edit mode removed doubles. This combines all the meshes if they are lined up. Then using the ‘make faces’ on auto will fill in all triangles and quads. The image above was also extruded to give it some form and has a subsurface modifier for a smoother look.

Initially this script replicated some drawings I have been working on in my sketchbook. Although it’s very meditative to create such drawings I feel the interesting aspect is the form and texture that emerges from the repetition of the simple process. Creating a script to replicate this system allows the work to be detached from a particular composition and focus on these aspects which interest me. It also allows for the image to be animated.

The script is written in Processing. Each circle buds new circles at random angles. The new circles grow until the hit they collide with another. The color of each is a slight variation of it’s parent.

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In my quest to master the web I’ve redesigned my site a few times. Unfortunately I keep coming across new things to learn and after finishing each re-design i find something wrong with it. So here it is for the eighth (give or take) time. My goal was to make the site a little more professional and show off my work a little better. The results not so bad, so maybe I’ll give it a rest for a few months.