Jared S Tarbell

Substrate: a dense band of tan and grey rectangular cracks crossing the frame from left to right, with soft watercolor shading on white. View at full size

SUBSTRATE

Processing · 2003

Lines like crystals grow on a computational substrate. A simple perpendicular growth rule creates intricate city-like structures.

Each crack travels in a straight line until it meets another crack or the edge of the field. When it stops, a new crack begins from a random point on an existing one, turned at a right angle. Beside every crack, a sand painter lays translucent grains of color into the open space, filling each region with a soft watercolor. The palette is taken from a painting by Jackson Pollock.

Substrate: a wide field packed with small perpendicular cracks in tan, grey and black, like a city seen from above.

0021 iterated substrate

Substrate: an even, dense grid of short crossing cracks with faint watercolor fills on white.

0037 iterated substrate

Substrate: tan crack structures crowding the top of a wide frame, thinning to open white space below.

0053 iterated substrate

Substrate: a horizontal band of perpendicular cracks colored with a palette taken from Jackson Pollock.

1000 classic computational substrate, color palette stolen from Jackson Pollock

The simple rule, the complex results, the enormous potential for modification; this has got to be one of my all time favorite self-discovered algorithms.

Substrate: clusters of curving cracks from eleven crystal instances merging across a white field.

3000 non-linear substrate growth with eleven crystal instances

Allowing the cracks within the substrate to curve, we see even greater irregularity, including isolated structures merging together in complex ways.

Substrate: long curved cracks dividing a square into large open cells, with dense growth along the edges.

2001 growth catalysts converge in regions of open space

Substrate: scattered small crack clusters just after growth has begun, on mostly white space.

2004 just moments after the growth process has begun

Substrate: an early rendering with long angled cracks and broad sand-painted washes spilling across open space.

e1000 early substrate rendering with sand painting effect

Substrate: an early rendering with heavy sand painting highlighting large overlapping rectangular structures.

e1001 heavy sand painting highlights larger structures

An early version of Substrate did not confine the watercoloring effect (see Sand Stroke) to regions defined by the cracks.

Substrate: black perpendicular crack lines on white, with no color, growing into a dense city-like web.

BW0000 early substrate growth without sand painting effect

Substrate: black and white cracks after extended growth, filling the square with fractal density.

BW0001 extended growth exhibits fractal density

Substrate: fine black linear cracks in a detailed grid on white, without the sand painting effect.

BW1000 detailed linear substrate growth without sand painting effect

Another early version has no watercolor effect at all.

Download Source Code

Programmed in Processing

By Jared S Tarbell

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

June 2003

Originally published at Complexification

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