a symmetrical doodling program
October 2, 2012 6:46 PM   Subscribe

Silk... a symmetrical doodling program, like drawing with strands of silk. (previously)
posted by crunchland (42 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
I doodled a few women's bodies. Fun! (..nsfw..?)
posted by Malice at 7:01 PM on October 2, 2012


Holy god do I see an edit button on a Mefi post? When did this happen?
posted by Malice at 7:01 PM on October 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


Yay, glad to see it here! Creator of Silk here -- feel free to ask me any questions or make suggestions if you've got 'em.

The most popular request I've gotten so far is a way to save the pictures you make, and I'm going to see about adding that in soon. Let me know if there's anything else you think would be cool.
posted by yurivish at 7:02 PM on October 2, 2012 [19 favorites]


I made Kadabra!

You can see I have been playing too much Pokémon.
posted by capricorn at 7:10 PM on October 2, 2012 [2 favorites]




Very beautiful, yurvish.

I think it would be cool if you added more symmetries. A four-fold rotational symmetry would look great.

/I'd be glad to hack out the math for you if you'd like. I wrote something vaguely like this to learn how to write GUI programs for ..... Windows 3.1!
posted by benito.strauss at 7:18 PM on October 2, 2012


Thanks! Also, there is four-fold symmery: Click the label in the corner.

Also, I've just added the music back in -- it was gone temporarily due to a fierce encounter with the reddit homepage. But it was designed specifically for silk by a wonderfully talented musician (miscoscopics.co.uk) who also worked on the music for Osmos.

Let me know what you think. :D
posted by yurivish at 7:20 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


I feel like I'm making a production company logo
posted by The Whelk at 7:22 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Adding text would be great. Different line strokes would be interesting/shading?

Oh, and the ability to do this with my bare hands on any surface (including the air around my hands) would be really helpful as well.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:24 PM on October 2, 2012


I love this so much!

yurivish: "The most popular request I've gotten so far is a way to save the pictures you make"

Yes please!
posted by dejah420 at 7:25 PM on October 2, 2012


More fun than I expected. Not a symmetry fan.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:25 PM on October 2, 2012




Symmetry is pretty.
posted by Evernix at 7:26 PM on October 2, 2012


I doodled a few women's bodies. -- Interesting. I guess this is a modern Rorschach Test, because everything you guys say your pictures look like don't look anything like that to me.
posted by crunchland at 7:30 PM on October 2, 2012 [5 favorites]


This really lovely and makes me want to do a weekend of creative web app awesomess as the museum I work for. Beautiful work, yurivish! +1 being able to save pics! And (magical pony) animate them!
posted by smirkette at 7:51 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


there is four-fold symmery: Click the label in the corner.

That produces this kind of 4-fold symmetry. I was wondering if you could add this kind. (I'm a little bit obsessed with symmetries.)

If you do decide to add more, here's a nice gallery of possibilities. But I'll bet more people want the ability to save their images.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:52 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Everything I draw ends up looking like fallopian tubes. :(
posted by mochapickle at 7:58 PM on October 2, 2012 [6 favorites]


So, does anyone have any LSD? We're half way to the complete experience...
posted by HuronBob at 8:07 PM on October 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


benito.strauss - ah, that's neat! Would you happen to know what the transformations are to bring a point from one place to the other? I've set up a fairly flexible system that can generate new symmetries given a transformation and its inverse.
posted by yurivish at 8:26 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


It's vaginas all the way down!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:55 PM on October 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


yurivish-

Pluggable architecture for the win!

I don't know what your co-ordinate system is (I snagged your silk.js file but it's minified so I couldn't figure it out).

But if your current four-fold map is
4 way flip
(x,y) ->
Images
(-x, y)
(-x,-y)
( x,-y)


then rotation would be
4 way rotation
(x,y) ->
Images Inverse
(-y, x) ( y,-x)
(-x,-y) (-x,-y)
( y,-x) (-y, x)


(Sorry I don't know how to make code show up better on MeFi.)

These are relative to the point (0,0). It wouldn't be too hard to make them relative to (w/2, h/2).

If you want me to make it fit better, just give me more details, or pastebin the relevant section of code.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:26 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Interesting. I guess this is a modern Rorschach Test, because everything you guys say your pictures look like don't look anything like that to me.

All right, how about I clarify: I doodled. With a mouse. On a website that only lets you draw one half. I took a few seconds on each. It was fun. I posted for fun, also.

So sorry you were expecting more.
posted by Malice at 9:27 PM on October 2, 2012


Loooooooooooove this.
posted by desuetude at 10:04 PM on October 2, 2012


So sorry you were expecting more.

Oh please. It's just that, when a link is labeled potentially not safe for work, one usually expects something more like this.
posted by wreckingball at 10:25 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Dear yurivish, Silk maker, this is SOOOOO cool!!! Thank you for creating this fun. Your original Silk has been my desktop background for years. It has given me joy every single time I turn on the computer.

It's fun to doodle to music of my own choosing, like Manana Afterlife Mix, or Go Out And Love someone by Pogo. hypnotic fun!

Would be cool to see these as a light show while dancing, animated doodles.

And crunchland, thanks for the post.
posted by nickyskye at 11:02 PM on October 2, 2012


Just holding the mouse down in one spot with symmetry turned off creates something beautiful.
posted by b33j at 11:10 PM on October 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


A Buddha doodle.
posted by nickyskye at 11:24 PM on October 2, 2012


Fun. I like the combination of starting with symmetry and then turning it off for adding details.
Blue iris.
posted by Mizu at 11:44 PM on October 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


This kind of looks like Pan from Pan's Labyrinth, no?

No, this very obviously the Buddha sitting on a rock in the middle of the sea with the aurora borealis streaming around him. That's what you intended to draw, right? And oh, wow, I didn't even see nickyskye's Buddha doodle comment until just now. Uncanny.
posted by taz at 12:08 AM on October 3, 2012


Another start symmetrical, then add asymmetrical parts: Pink Elephant Loves You
posted by Mizu at 1:57 AM on October 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


Best fire drawing I've ever seen. Mostly it draws itself for that. Quite fun. I can almost imagine I can draw!
http://new.weavesilk.com/?js9
posted by Goofyy at 2:13 AM on October 3, 2012


Love this! Had to close out of it pretty quick or I'd be lost to doodling for a few hours, preventing any work from being done. Just a quick note though - not getting any music. The sound effects I can hear fine, but that's it, no music, even after toggling the mute/unmute setting in hope that it fired it up.
posted by Inner Universe at 3:11 AM on October 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


This is very neat, and will probably become my new favourite way to distract myself when I'm sick. Move over, Bubble Shooter!
posted by third word on a random page at 3:55 AM on October 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


This is gorgeous, though I can't stop drawing things that remind me of the visible human project. I think the Rorschach Test thing is accurate.

yurivish - could I trouble you to give a brief overview of your drawing algorithm? If it's not a trade secret, of course.
posted by vanar sena at 5:28 AM on October 3, 2012


Oh, if only this had existed back when I was into Evanescence. I could've made some sweet banners.
posted by limeonaire at 5:45 AM on October 3, 2012


I accidentally made Sauron. Eek!

Just add a lid to his eye.
posted by ersatz at 7:27 AM on October 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


This is fabulous. I could play with it all day.
posted by roolya_boolya at 8:52 AM on October 3, 2012


My first few attempts returned some tramp stamps and Georgia O'Keeffes. Fun!
posted by benbenson at 9:35 AM on October 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


I really want the lines to form slower! It would give me a little more control and ability to finesse it a bit.
posted by Specklet at 9:53 AM on October 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


Even writing swear words looks awesome!
posted by Lucien Dark at 12:34 PM on October 4, 2012 [1 favorite]


benito -- thanks! this will almost certainly make it into a future version.

vanar sena -- it's essentially drawing a bunch of thin, transparent lines next to each other, with slight changes to the locations of points each frame. What you see is the time-lapse evolution of the line, and it follows the velocity of your mouse so that you can control the spread and brightness.
posted by yurivish at 7:25 PM on October 4, 2012 [1 favorite]


yurvish, I'm really looking forward to future versions.

BTW, in my version I found it was a lot of fun to be able to move the center of symmetry to different places during a single drawing. You might too.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:32 PM on October 11, 2012


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