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WE ARE ALL SNOWFLAKES
P5.JS
“We Are All Snowflakes” was a project I created for Kadenze, Inc. to promote several of their creative technology classes and serve as a fun, interactive gift for all the members during the holiday season.



In the spirit of the holiday season, the online arts and creative technology MOOC, wanted to create and share a fun project that highlighted some of the skills their users could gain from taking their classes. Specifically, the Introduction to Programming for the Visual Arts using P5js and Generative Art and Computational Creativity courses. This project was created using the P5JS JavaScript library spearheaded by Lauren McCarthy and the Processing Foundation, to bring the creative coding language Processing to the web in a native library. This amazing library makes it easy for beginners and advanced coders to create interactive and generative audio-visual pieces that can run in the browser and on mobile devices. I combined techniques from this intro course with some of the ideas from the generative arts course, specifically, the section that discusses Lindenmayer systems, often referred to as L-systems. These systems use simple rules for converting data, usually randomized strings, to generate natural looking patterns. 

Build your own snowflake:


Essentially, a single grammar is generated and the system performs various search and replace functions to take a small pattern and transform it into an l-system. Then it begins drawing one point at a time. This in itself would only generate a single line, however, with some mirroring and rotation, we get the crystalline structure of a snowflake. 

While researching snowflakes, I found the amazing work of Kenneth G. Libbrecht, a Professor of Physics at CalTech. Professor Libbrecht has done fascinating research on snowflakes and even grows his own. The color palette was heavily inspired by his own fine art photography of snowflakes. Sampling his color palette, I created a random gradient and color palette generator to parallel the overall visual aesthetic. 

There is also a draw mode that allows users to draw their own snowflake and save it if they wish.
COLIN HONIGMAN         CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST         LOS ANGELES