I have been playing around with some flowing formations lately which I have always avoided because they deal with the dreaded Math. Luckily my friend at Dyleeo helped me out with really understanding how to use sin and cos for smooth movement.

This first version was a test of leaves moving across the screen: leafFormation_v2

The section version is leaves moving in place (as if the camera was following them): leafFormation_v3

download source (both versions)

I am going to keep on posting my explorations with BitmapData until someone stops me.

My latest iteration turns the input from a webcam (or video) into a haltone effect (an idea given to me by Brandon Breaux). The squares analyze the intesity of the color they are over. If they are over a dark color they will get smaller, and if they are over a light color they will get bigger. This naturally causes a halftone effect.

BitmapImage_v10

Furthering my explorations with the BitmapData and classes, I came up with this effect. It’s surprisingly easy to change one or two variables and have it give off an entirely different effect. I think my next step will be integrating this with your webcam.

bitmapimage_v8_videosquares

Lately I have been forcing myself to get better working with classes, and BitmapData in flash. So my tests have been including a little bit of each, and I wanted to post up some of the odd results I have gotten along the way.

Trippy

Crazy Boxes

Neither of which really serve a purpose, but I found them very interesting to watch.

Having a week off from work will do weird things to a person. I assumed I was going to sit around being as bored as I could possibly make myself, but I found it actually had the opposite effect. I ended up starting up a bunch of random projects, and I think the most interesting ones that came out of it was my flash Morse DeCode projects.

In my pursuit for taking code outside of the computer, I bought an Arduino board to start playing around with circuit boards. Once I got one LED light blinking I started thinking about what you could do with one flashing light. The first thing that came to mind was morse code.

This video I threw together explains the rest of the Morse DeCode project.

My future plans include optimizing it to read at a faster rate, inserting spaces between words, and eventually turning it into something that could theoretically be used by certain disabled people to communicate. I am sure there is a lot of other technology out there that is more advanced, but there is something special about the idea that anyone in their home can create the technology to help others communicate.

Update (Jan 4, 2010):

As Anne Frank says “no one ever became poor by giving”. So on that note, here is the source, as is.

Morse DeCode Source

In case you are wondering, I had no idea that quote existed. I had to look it up. My brain is not full of Anne Frank quotes. In case you wondered

Someone tipped me off to these videos by Glenn Marshall that were coded entirely in processing. Not only are they visually stunning, but they also feature the music of my favorite duo of all time; Boards of Canada. The man has good taste.

Music Is Math from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

Metamorphosis from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.