I’m currently working on a new online edition of an undergraduate course I first developed in 2014. The course is the second in a sequence of two introductory programming courses for non-majors. Our emphasis is on programming as a creative medium for art and design, so it’s only natural that …
Procedurally generated Zellij compositions. Click on the drawing and press the space bar to generate a new composition. Press the ‘s’ key to download an SVG file. Yes, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that a couple of years ago, I experimented with NFTs. Look: I was younger then, and …
I haven’t written anything on this site for a long time. That seems particularly unconscionable after a such a consequential year. And while the medium of blogging continues to decline in popularity, it still seems to hold some value for me as a means of disseminating ideas (just this morning …
The challenge when designing around a large star is to reconcile its high order of symmetry with the field of more standard shapes that surrounds it. The goal is to make the complete design appear natural and seamless. That’s an exceedingly difficult design challenge, one that increases in difficulty as …
Tilings like these, based on alternating arrangements of squares and rhombs, are ancient. And in the twentieth century, a few people experimented with this hinged motion. I particularly like the essay by Duncan Stuart, then a student at the UNC School of Design, though the most famous use of this …
I developed a new open-source software library for manipulating isohedral tilings, based on the work I did on this topic during my PhD. The library is available in C++ and Javascript, and I offer a few fun automated and interactive demo programs that anybody can use to play with isohedral tilings.
Anybody who has attended a Bridges conference in past ten years will be familiar with the work of Rinus Roelofs. His talks always offer an entertaining contrast: stunning and inspiring ideas in the intersection of geometry and art, balanced with his humble, low-key delivery. It was also Rinus who suggested …
This term, I’m once again teaching CS 106, a second-level introductory programming course with a focus on art and data visualization. The course is taught using Processing, which provides a fun and accessible (though flawed) environment for art-focused novice programmers. The most recent lecture includes a discussion on drawing graphs, and …