{"id":814,"date":"2020-03-05T21:43:47","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T21:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stuartcupit.com\/wordpress\/?p=814"},"modified":"2026-01-02T21:09:54","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:09:54","slug":"dynasquiggler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuartcupit.com\/wordpress\/?p=814","title":{"rendered":"DynaSquiggler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trying to create a single-line<\/span> portrait for the Processing day event in Bournemouth. I wanted a project that the public could engage with and which could be used with a plotter, which some of the others are building. Stumbled across some single-line drawings on Pinterest and thought that would be good to try and draw in realtime in response to a webcam image.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, I wrote a flocking algorithm where the boids were attracted to the darker areas of the portrait, leaving a line trail as they move. This kind of worked but struggled to capture the details and make the final line drawing very recognisable. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did some more research and came across LineLabs<\/a> work using a stippling algorithm to act as the backbone for the line. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, using a particle simulation, each particle has a repulsive forcefield strength and pushes against its neighbours if they are close enough. The<\/span> strength of the forcefield is based on the brightness of the pixel at its position over an image, either a loaded picture or a live webcam feed. There’s a single particle in the middle with a weak attractive force and a large radius pulling all the particles in to keep them from just floating off the screen. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sliders let me control all the parameters to play around and find optimum values.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More particles can be added in batches of 100, randomly scattered around the mouse position. Once 3-4 thousand are in the simulation Processing starts to struggle and the frame rate drops to ~5fps. (I’m using Toxiclibs<\/a>, perhaps writing my own particle quad-tree storage would speed up nearest neighbour searching)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When happy with the stippling, I create a line through all the particle positions by searching for the next nearest neighbour. Processings curve function has a tightness parameter that controls the fit of the curve and with a very sloppy fit, it creates a nice squiggly line that overshoots each point like fast drawing. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s nice because it reacts in a really fluid way to a changing\/moving image with the particles rippling about.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have revisited this project, coded it in multi-threading C++, so it’s hundreds of times faster and much better-looking line drawings. Click here https:\/\/stuartcupit.com\/wordpress\/?p=999<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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