Future Vision Online Exhibition, 11 Feb - 11 Mar 2021

Software

Keywords: Bitmap, Algorithmic, Drawing, Dynamic painting, Machine learning.

The code used to produce Dynamic Reg was developed during research practice on code-based drawing and digital painting. The graphic compositions presented were created with different versions of an interactive computer software, initially programmed in AS3 and currently programmed in Javascript.

This software allows the use of drawing and painting tools to produce two-dimensional graphic compositions in the painting area of the virtual environment.

The user can manipulate the graphical information through a purely audiovisual language, drawing with the software, performing continuous operations: capturing gestures and movements through a digital camera, drawing and painting from produced sounds or peripheral devices such as digital drawing tables and other controllers.

In this computer system the code is written in two large blocks, one that handles the reception and input of data, dealing with the digital camera, sound capture or digital controller, the other contains all the rules for the graphic production, based on a time event that runs in cycle.

The code triggers sequential actions, executing a diversified result in the aesthetic and plastic domain, controlling the line and its thickness, the stain and its shape, the speed of movement and the interactive trajectory of the action point, the type of its movement and elasticity and the chromatic table to be used.

The use of color palettes and different chromatic values is introduced in different manners: in some cases analyzing the different pixels of a digital bitmap image; in other cases the values exist in data arrays; in some of the last examples I used 'machine learning' in tensorflow.js so that an algorithm can learn from a feed of provided examples to decide which colors should be used. In this process, the machine is a virtual co-author, who controls a series of functions and adds something to the drawing more than a traditional medium usually adds.

The final graphic composition can be exported as a bitmap image in JPEG or PNG format, with enough quality and resolution to be printed in large formats.