Processing

&

Data visualisation

In the first workshop, we were introduced to the topic of coding and a software called processing. Processing is "a flexible software sketchbook within the context of the visual arts". This is free to download and is an open source software. The aim of creating this software was to simplify the whole process of programming interactive graphics.

During class, we were suggested to read a couple of books to help us learn more about Processing. Therefore, I bought the book 'Getting Started with Processing' by Casey Reas and Ben Fry. This is one of the most helpful books I have read, and I learnt many new things about processing other than the things that I learnt during the workshop. Many examples are shown and explained in this book. It gave me the opportunity to also look at the codes they have entered, which enabled me to create the same interactive graphics.

In the workshop, we started off as learning the basics of processing. This means that we learnt the simple things like inserting "void setup ()" at the beginning of every code sheet, and "Void draw ()" afterwards. Furthermore, we looked into the different code names for drawing shapes, such as a rectangle, circle, ellipse, square etc. On the right is a page I scanned from the "Getting Started with Processing" book. I found this page very interesting and useful since it gives you guidance on how to code shapes and what each element represents.

This was the first thing I ever created on Processing. It was very simple. I was playing around with different shapes, and learning how to change the color of the "fill" and "stroke".

The next exercise was more challenging. We were told to do a house. We were also told that sketching it out before plugging the codes straightaway in the computer would be easier and better for us to do. Therefore I did a quick sketch of how the house will look like, and and calculated the x and y coordinates of each point within the house. This was actually really helpful, since all I had to do was plug in the codes and no mistakes were made.

The third and final exercise was to create something that could help us track down the things we do. Therefore I chose to it on the different colors of nail polish I wear throughout the year. Since this includes text information, I first used textedit which makes the data have commas in between. This will make the process faster since it will be ready to put into processing.

Push matrix is used when all the coding before it needs to be saved and all the codes after it to change.
You end this by using Pop Matrix.

To translate means for the image or text to rotate.

The following screenshots are done with help from the book written by Casey Reas and Ben Fry. I was able to learn so many different things such as drawing with colour, creating custom shapes, drawing robots, pins and lines, repetition etc.