After a weekend of skiing with my wife I decided it was time to get back to it and add some controls to my previous experiments. After tweaking the last few sketches I decided that I did not have enough control over the brownian particles that were being added to the stage. I took some time to look at how I could apply forces to the particles which quickly lead me to vector math.

Comparing vector math on paper to vector math inside a programming environment seems like a formidable challenge but it was easier than I expected. With a little trig and some basic vector equations I was able to create a pulling force on each particle that would always pull the particle towards its inital position. I have posted a simple example that shows the different vectors in action with source here: Brownian Motion w/ Vectors
Unfortunately the majority of my time was spent trying to figure out how vectors worked instead of creating new visuals but you will notice that there is more control over the lines that are drawn to the screen in the images that I have posted. Hopefully I will get the the visuals in my next round of experiments. Here are a few samples:

Basic Blue lines with a randomSeed

// basic brownian movement

float xPos;
float yPos;

void setup()
{
size(200,200);
background(255);
fill(100);

yPos = height/2;
xPos = width/2;

}

void draw()
{

// randomly change the position on every cycle =====
yPos += random(-5,5);
xPos += random(-5,5);
ellipse(xPos, yPos, 10, 10);

}

I recently purchased the processing book from Ben Fry and Casey Reas and started to get more familiar with the syntax in processing. With this knowledge I was able to begin to expand on my recent Brownian Movement experiments. This time I am not using an additive stage, but instead I am clearing and redrawing the stage on every cycle to allow the particles to have a more distinct motion.

This is pretty basic example but the motion and the particle grouping turned out better than I expected so I figured I would share my results. I will clean the code up a bit and post it at a later date.

See it in action: Brownian Movement in Motion

Check the link: Brownian Movement Example

Brownian movement is described as the random movement of particles in liquid. Since the movement is in liquid the motion is in three dimensional. I thought three dimensions might be a bit too much to get started with so I simplified it down to two dimensions. This is a just a quick note to show what I have worked on in the past. It was created in actionscript 2 using bitmap data, the drawing api, and of course the basic fundamentals of brownian movement. I have included some images of the visuals that were created and a link to the tool I created to draw for me.

Use the sliders and text fields to manipulate the results of the visualization tool. Brownian Movement Drawing Tool

This blog will continue be the place that I document my progress as I move through my ideas and concepts. I am currently using flash as a medium but with a recent purchase of Casey Reas and Ben Fry’s processing book I will look to processing to provide a method to create prints of my work. Please check back for more updates.