Project 4 - Final

Update 6

Physical Form

Since Tuesday I have played around with the layout of the lightning. I was originally torn between how to present the months with no lightning data. Leave them as blank spaces or fill them in with black. I have chosen to fill them in. It means buying more boards, but its necessary for the art!

I have also decided, that in order to print the highest quality images possible I will be rendering in 4K, not 1080. I also tested 2K. Below is 2K and then 4K images.

Virtual Form

I have also done a lot of work on the colors of the lightning. Originally I knew that I wanted to use average annual temperature to determine the color of ALL lightning for a city. But after some tests, I didn't like how it turned out. So Phil suggested using the average temperature for each month, this way I get a nice visual curve of the lightning changes colors for each month and each city. Below are the tests I didn't like and the final decision.

Here is each color showing the range, from 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.

Update 5

Physical Form

I have bought 30 black foam core boards to mount my prints on to. These still need to be cut to size.

Virtual Form

The lightning has been finished! I just need to apply the correct colors, based on annual average temperature, and then render and print. Some cities have months with very few lightning strikes, so I don't know if I want to keep these; they're not very interesting to look at.

Below is Bogota, Colombia for an entire year

Below is Anchorage, Alaska for all data of 2013. As you can see, some months had very few lightning strikes, and I don't know if I want to keep these months.

Here is a final render comp of the new (left) death valley versus the old (right)

Update 4

Physical Form

Since last time, I have decided to scrap the sculptural aspect of my project. The biggest reason behind this decision being cost. I was toying with 2 methods of reconstruction: using EL wire, and casting the sculpture (like you would cast metal objects). Since I wanted the object to be decently large, 3-4 feet tall, the amount of EL wire I would need to make every lightning strike in 1 image was going to cost a LOT of money. I also looked into the cost of having a sculpture cast and it was in the $450 range and would take some time before I actually had the sculpture in my hands.

I will continue to focus on presenting my renders in a series of prints, presented in a high quality, aesthetically pleasing format.

Virtual Form

With that said, I have been working on the virtual lightning since last week, going through all of the months and creating the lightning for each month, and each city. Based on he available data, I'm looking at about 62 individual lightning generations across all 6 cities. The colors of the lightning will be determined by average annual temperature of the city chosen. Each month for a city will all share the same color (instead of a range of colors representing monthly change).

Update 3

Physical Form

Along with the idea of using EL wire to create the physical lightning, I have toyed around with the idea of 3D casting a sculpture. Still looking into this. Right now the biggest problem is coming up with a solution to truly represent the lightning in 3D. Through discussions with Phil, we have come up with a few different projection solutions to make the Lightning look 3D, but I'm really wanting to make this in physical 3D form.

Virtual Form

I have also finalized the virtual appearance of the lightning, as far as structure is concerned. In project 2, the lightning had a distracting angular form to it especially when viewed in physical prints. Last week I presented a solution that worked for individual bolts but didn't apply well to multi-webbed lightning strikes. I have no resolved this problem and below are the results!

Update 2
For the presentation aspect of my final, I have decided to print all of the months for each city, presented as a still gallery, but also decided to create 1 or 2 physical versions of the lightning. For this, I have planned to use heavy gauge EL wire, as it holds it's shape very well, and the light will help tie the physical version back in to the renders.

Update 1

For my final project I will be continuing work on my lightning from project 2. Using feedback from Phil and the class I will mold the lightning into a finished project.

Goals

1. Increase line fidelity in the l-system. The branching in the lightning has these visible bends that are very hard angled and distracting when printed.
2. Explore form over time. I will create lightning for an entire year for every city to compare their shapes and see if there are any re-occurring patterns using my methods of reconstruction
3. Adjust rendering transparency. I plan to work on the shader for the lightning, specifically the transparency of each individual bolt.

Technical

Lightning will continue to be created in Houdini.

Presentation

Deciding on whether to present the images as prints or whether I should 3D print some of the lightning. I think it would be cool to 3D print the lightning and hang it from the ceiling so people can walk through and around the shape. If I decide to make prints, they would be arranged in 6 rows, with each row having an image for each month of the year.

Goals achieved so far

I have successfully increased the line fidelity of the lightning. Old is on the left, New is on the right.

Project 3 - Chaos

Final Update

Description

For my Chaos Project, I wanted to use a series of webcams pointed at the HVS screen to create a video feedback loop. Along with some video filters and manipulations, the final result was more chaotic (fractals) than complex.

Equipment Used

• 5 x Logitech HD C270 Webcams
• 1 x Insignia 7-port USB Hub
• 1 x 30ft USB Cable

Method

I used a Logitech C270 HD Webcam  pointed at the HVS screen to create a video feedback loop, and then created some Warhol-esque filters and video manipulations to add visual interest to the feedback. The video feedback was split into 15 separate videos (one for each screen) for the HVS.

Complications

My original plan involved using 1 webcam pointed at the HVS screen (15 screens in a 5x3 arrangement) to create feedback. The speed of the display ended up being very slow since 1 core was trying to throw the webcam feed up to all 15 screens. So I thought I would split the task into 5 separate processing sketches, with each sketch handling 3 screens. I chose 3 screens per sketch because that is the point before the display frames per seconds started to drop drastically.

Unfortunately, processing can not split 1 webcam's feed across multiple different sketches, so I went out and bought 4 more webcams and a 7 port USB hub. My thinking then was that I could devote 1 webcam to each sketch (5 total). Well, this is when another problem arose; all of the webcams had the same name... "Logitech HD Webcam C270". So I could not tell each sketch to use a different webcam since they all had the same name. Fortunately Processing puts cameras in a list so that they are easily accessible. Unfortunately, there is a current bug with capture lists, and my list contained 422 cameras, not 5 like it should have, so I couldn't easily access my cameras individually.

In the end, I presented 1 camera rendering on all 15 screens, and while it was slow it made for very interesting visuals.

Presentation

If my work was exhibited in a gallery with the same 5x3 screen arrangement, I would have a table in front of the screen, about 5-7 feet away with the 5-webcam arrangement pointing at the screens. They would be by themselves, enticing the viewers to come and pick up the cameras and play with them. There would also be some buttons that people could press to increase/decrease color values, saturation, and posterization levels.

Results
Videos Coming Soon

Conclusion

Thanks to this project I learned that there are actually two different kinds of video feedback. The route I pursued is more fractal-like in nature, and creates images with-in images within images, almost like a Droste effect (Droste Example). Phil pointed out that there's also a type of feedback where each subsequent frame is amplified, causing these weird noise artifacts that dance and swim around (see 2nd image above).

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Update 1

Right now I am learning processing, reading tutorials and books. Currently I do not have a plan for the Chaos project.

Some links I'm following:

http://www.learningprocessing.com/

http://processingjs.org/learning/

https://processing.org/tutorials/gettingstarted/

Useful Processing API link:

https://www.processing.org/reference/

Final Project Ideas

Idea #1

I want to use wind speeds and directions from a city to create a pollock-like painting for each season of the year, spring, summer, fall, and winter. This will involve using the data to spray particles onto a canvas, each particle will have a color random color in the range of the color I choose for the season. For instance, spring colors would be range from a Dark green to a light yellow. Summer could be a lot of bright blues and light yellows bordering on white.

Idea #2

I want to create a series of pieces that are generated to resemble micro-organisms. All of the projects I have done so far have been at the macro level, so I think it'd be fun to make something that looks micro but is made through a generative process.

Generative Artists

Diana Lange (Processing, geometric forms and lines):
http://www.openprocessing.org/user/5969
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dianalange/

James Connolly (Real-Time visuals with old CRTs):
http://www.jameshconnolly.com/
http://butdoesitfloat.com/A-Niagara-of-alien-beauty

Christian Zander (Generative landscapes, fractals, mainly deals with album covers, art covers etc.):
http://blog.houseandbike.com/
http://work.emperorofantarctica.com/

Really cool CGI fractals:

Project 2 - L-Systems

Description

For my L-System project I wanted to use real world lightning data from various cities around the world, to try and re-create lightning. Using L-Systems, Houdini and the data provided to me by the Weather Channel, I set off to accomplish this task!

Method
For this project I was able to receive data from the Weather Channel's national and global archives. The cities chosen were:

• Anchorage, Alaska, USA - 100 miles - 2012 to 2013
• Bogota, Colombia - 100 miles - 2013
• Death Valley, California, USA - 100 miles - 2013
• Houston, Texas, USA - 100 miles - 2013
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - 100 miles - 2013
• Munich, Germany - 100 miles - 2013

 The data contained: 

• date and time
• length in time of the lightning strike
• lat/long coordinates
• polarity of the lightning strike
• amplitude of the lightning strike

1. I began by narrowing my data down to 100 lightning strikes per city, chosen at random (some cities had up to 200,000 in one month!). Lightning chosen was based on the months with the most activity for each city.
2. I then began creating a base L-System that would get me close to the look and feel of a lightning strike.
3. Next I brought in the lat/long coordinates of lightning data for each city and mapped an L-system to each point.
4. I then used the length in time of the each lightning strike to dynamically control the number of generations each lightning strike would have. Quick lightning strikes would have fewer generations compared to longer lightning strikes.
5. Next I used the polarity of each lightning strike to control whether the lightning strike was more of a large individual bolt, versus a more webby/spread out lightning bolt.
6. Next, I used the Amplitude as well as the Polarity to control 3 different branching angle variables to determine branching at various stages in my L-System construction (implemented in Rules 1, 2, and 3).
7. Finally, I used the length in time again to control the thickness of the lightning strike branches. You'll notice that individual bolts(faster strikes) are fatter than the larger, more webby strikes, where the branches taper off to a smaller radius.

Presentation

I imagine these images as being printed out on 18x24 paper and presented with a small card detailing the City used, radius sampled around the city, and year the data was taken from.

Results

Cities presented in alphabetical order. Anchorage, Bogota, Death Valley, Houston, Kuala Lumpur, Munich.

Process Images

Below, actual lightning strike points and L-systems are shown for each city. The L-Systems are 3D.

Anchorage

Bogota

Death Valley

Houston

Kuala Lumpur

Munich

This final image here just blows my mind. This is the lat/long lightning data for Houston in May of 2013. 207,163 lightning strikes in one month! The next highest city was Bogota in October at 66,000 strikes.