Monday, June 30, 2008

Back from Texas


Mah new boots!
Originally uploaded by warpcat
Spent the past week visiting my wifes family near the Houston area. Got me some boots! Also got about half way through my new Processing book inbetween Texas BBQ and Sea World. Other than the 95+deg weather, it was a nice time.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

PixelPlot sketch in Processing


Had some time on Saturday to get a bit more Processing in: Based on an image passed in, it will convert the color values into XYZ coordinates, and plot them in 3d space. Each frame finds a new pixel, and plots it.
Find my code for it here.

Friday, June 20, 2008

'Color Search' in Processing


Tulip, 100% complete
Originally uploaded by warpcat
I found inspiration in the 'Pixel Path' Processing work done by Craig Mackenzie, and wanted to try my hand at it.

In this sketch, it isolates every 5th pixel, and if it fist a certain HSB criteria, it finds every matching pixel in the image, and draws a line to it. Click on the image to be taken to my Flickr page to see more.

The class I authored to help with the color pixel search can be found on my Processing Wiki.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Wedensday Processing...


So... I caught a cold. So... I'm home today, and it gives me a chance to relax and catch up on some Processing. Made a sketch called "puffPaint01" which let's you 'paint circles' on an image, and depending on speed of mouse, opacity, size, and stroke-width of circles
will change. Simple, but good mental calisthenics...
See code examples on my Processing Wiki.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Spore Creature Creator


...recently came out. It's a fun program that lets you build 'creatures' for the upcoming Spore game. I just made my first one, 'Jigglypuff'. Really looking forward to this game being released!
Check out Spore
and Creature Creator

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Steam Car, take one


Since our tickets to Robo Games DIDN'T arrive (most upsetting), my boy and I spent most Saturday attempting to use the erector sets to create a steam-powered car. We were pretty successful! The only reason it doesn't work is that the rubber-bands that power it aren't quite strong enough to transfer the power. I think we'll need to switch to sprockets with chain. But a good first attempt none the less! See my flickr set for more pics.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Erector set aquired!


The past few months I've had aspirations to build a steam powered... contraption. I've recently picked up a Wilseco D14 steam engine and boiler, which has been fun just to fire up and watch. The real question though is, will:
My Steam Engine + Erector Set = Cool Steam Contraption?
Only time will tell!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

TENORI-ON


I guy I work with brought one of these in. One of the coolest music gizmos I've seen in a long time. I won't even try describing it, watch the video, and check out the main page.
As I understand it, they cost around $1000, and only a hundred were brought to the US this year. One of the other cool things about them is that both sides have the lights. Meaning, as you're 'performing', your 'audience' can see the same thing you see.
Yes, I want one too.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

SF Internet Radio

Everyone has different musical tastes, but mine is regularly filled by SomaFM:
SomaFM independent internet radio
In particular, their Groove Salad station. Ever since my iPod broke a year after I bought it, I have shunned iTunes. WinAmp still does everything it needs to to stream this stuff. If you want a groovy taste of San Francisco, take a listen.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Want to learn Python?


I've 'taught' myself Python... three times now: I end up using it for a few months, and then don't use it for a year+ At which point I forget most of it... (why I recently started my Python Wiki: If I write something down, I remember it much better...). In the midst of my third try now, I think it'll finally stick, mainly since Maya v8.5, they've enabled Python scripting (and I use Maya all day long...). I'm a big sucker for starting with the fundamentals when learning any subject, so I looked at a lot of books on Python before choosing 'the one'. 'The one' I settled on was "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner". It does a great job for taking someone who knows nothing about Python (or programming for that matter) and by the end of the book, you're writing your own 'Asteroids' game. Recommended.

New Buck Knife


While at REI this weekend, I felt in the mood for a new pocket knife (I'm a big sucker for pocket knives, and watches). I liked this one: It's light (easily fits on my key chain), with a folding\locking blade, cost me about $16 (you can find it online for cheaper). Has built in bottle-opener as well. It has the text "Buck Whittaker" on the side, but it seems to be known at the "Buck Transport". Interesting that the Buck web site doesn't have this knife...?

Sunday, June 8, 2008

New Processing book


I'd already picked up the book by Casey Reas & Ben Fry; Processing: A programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists, which I've found to be great for learning the language. But while at Barnes and Noble yesterday, and armed with a variety of coupons, I tracked down the book by Ira Greenberg; Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art. While the one by Reas & Fry is both smaller in format, and fewer pages, it's also has a few sections in color (which is pretty nice). But I've heard good things about both books, and look forward to giving the new one a read. More Processing related books can be found here.

Python on Sunday...


Nice out, in the 80's, the soothing view of the Oracle towers from my window. What better to do than learn my Python? I'm finally wrapping my head around UI creation in Tkinter: I've been writing UI's in Maya for years (via ELF, Maya's 'Extended Layer Format'), so this isn't too much of a stretch, but it IS quite different. Nice to learn a new way of doing it.

Friday, June 6, 2008

GreenTree onBlue


tree04-0012
Originally uploaded by warpcat
One of the trees I've been generating with Processing. I have different classes to generate different styles of both rendering and behavior. (really, this is a test to see how this service from flickr works). Image links to the flickr set.

This is a test. I repeat: This is only a test...

I have entered the blogsphere. Post #1. What have I done?