This is actually going to depart from the spirit of the Essential Code a little … instead of exploring code, in this article I explore an API that I’ve found useful in many ways. It’s called intervals, and as its name implies, it’s all about intervals.
A common problem that arises in text processing, graphics (front [...]
[this example is a prototype I made for an internal design discussion at UW DUB. Only works in FF ... that's right, prototypes are exempt from browser compatibility etiquette!]
Stasko and Hudson wrote a great introduction to coding for animation. In this article, I want to explore some ways to apply one of their abstractions, pacing, [...]
Bezier curves are one of the truly unifying concepts in 2d graphics. Points, lines, and “curves” are all beziers. This article covers a few topics I’ve found useful related to beziers: making splines in limited graphics systems (like Flash), and fitting curves to a point set.
For more bezier code, including splitting and pseudo-parallelizaton, see the [...]
Noise can add “life” to a visualization. Life is texture and rhythm. For example …
C.E.B. Rea’ project on rotating squares shows that movement itself can take on form.
The tendrils on this scientific taxonomy draw viewers’ eyes into the words. It’s interesting that the authors view the organic layout as a weakness. In terms of presenting [...]
What’s in the box? isn’t just a question for Christmas; it also comes up when rendering and selecting, two of the most common graphic operations. Like for 1D intervals, there are datastructures to index 2D boxes for efficient lookup.
Unfortunately, they are not well integrated into graphics APIs, so this article will develop a few of [...]
Chances are that someday you’ll want to have an image visually stick out of the screen. Not only is it in, it brings your system a step closer to an immersing experience. This article will re-invent something a friend once showed me: a simple routine to map an image onto a quadrilateral. With this [...]