Bouncing off the Walls

In the second group of exercises from Daniel Shiffman's book Learning Processing, the topics covered include basic rollovers, toggles, movement from edge to edge, and simulated gravity. I have to admit that it took me about two hours to work through a bizarre little kink in the synthetic gravity part, where the objects would fall down and sometimes just quiver on the floor. Not what I was looking for. I think I solved it. Maybe. I think that the most interesting effects, though, are the ones involving semi-transparent circles leaving traces on the screen. Ooooooohhhh, wow... In any case, here are a few more screenshots and videos.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N1TbVZd8Zw]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t72Hpgu61aY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJRu0Yawng]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeRsObSiDU]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIss4Fn9YPc]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGl0-qDx4X0]

Completed:

• Learning Processing, Ch. 05: Conditionals (6 exercises)

Back to the Basics with "Learning Processing"

I decided that before I got too much further in Ben Fry's rather-advanced book Visualizing Data I would do well to go back through Daniel Shiffman's introductory-intermediate-advanced book Learning Processing. So, in a sense I'm starting from square one again, as I'm doing every coding exercise in the book from  the beginning. But it's always nice to have a firm foundation, isn't it?

So, here's the first batch of sketches. In the book, Shiffman recommends that one create a basic shape to elaborate upon as one learns new material. He made a simple alien that he calls Zoog. I decided to make a stick-figure dancer. (In Getting Started with Processing by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, they use P5, the Processing Robot as the running example.) I have still images in the gallery above. The first two are inherently static, the second two are screenshots from a dynamic sketch. Videos of the sketches in action are below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIL4OBD74mo]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez7iKklydgY]

Completed:

• Learning Processing, Ch. 00: Preface (0 exercises)
• Learning Processing, Ch. 01: Pixels (1 exercise)
• Learning Processing, Ch. 02: Processing (1 exercise)
• Learning Processing, Ch. 03: Interaction (2 exercises)
• Learning Processing, Ch. 04: Variables (1 exercise)

Related articles

• "Visualizing Data" for Real Now (bartdoesart.com)

More Than a Straight Line This Time

When I last posted on my work with Ben Fry's excellent book Visualizing Data, I posted all of two drawings, both of which were made with straight lines. Well, Chapter 3, "Mapping," does a heck of a lot more than that. It took me two days to get through this chapter (as opposed to 1:48 — I timed it — for Chapter 2). It was working on an interactive map of the US. Anyhow, the gallery above contains the many version of the sketches I did while following along with the examples. The still photos do not demonstrate the interactive, changing nature of several of these sketches, I've embedded a YouTube video below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bm6nhZYW1o]

In the meantime, I think I need to go back to Daniel Shiffman's fabulous book Learning Processing to get up to speed on some of the intermediate stuff first.

Completed:

• Visualizing Data, Ch. 3: Mapping (17 exercises)