prosthetic knowledge

16th Century Geometric Perspective Illustrations

Found at BibliOdyssey, a collection of mathematical illustrations found in an obscure paper manuscript.

The album of geometric and perspective drawings (Codex Guelf 74. 1. Aug. fol.) from the 1500s is available online from Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel.

It consists of more than thirty watercolour sketches of polyhedra^ or, as the Latin title on one of the images above has it, perspectives of the regular solids (a standard descriptive name, originating with Plato and Euclid).

More information and examples can be found at BibliOdyssey here

Frames from routines in the Magic Hand of Chance (1982-85) by Roman Verostko

Frames changed continuously with a new title for each improvisation proceeding  in real time without repeating itself. Titles and improvisations were always “one of a kind” originals. Raster screens in CGI graphics were limited to 200 by 320 pixels (medium) or 200 by 640 pixels (high). The pen plotter allowed 1,000 increments to the inch and therefore provided the ideal graphics peripheral in the 1980’s.   

My first exhibition piece, “The Magic Hand of Chance”, was exhibited on a 25 inch monitor cabled to a personal computer. The program worked in real time generating a series of six visual improvisations which were displayed in dynamic sequence on the monitor. All words and images were generated in real time and each sequence was always an original improvisation. These works with their non-repetitive improvisations, evoked the kinds of surprises that we get from free association.

Conway’s Game of Life in HTML5

via webmonkey:

We’ve seen several implementations of Conway’s Game of Life that run in the browser — probably because Dr. Conway’s exercise in generative, automated systems is both simple enough for programmers to reproduce easily and pretty enough to watch that it quickly captures one’s imagination.

Here’s the latest: an HTML5 version of Life, as built by British programmer Joseph Mansfield. He says he tackled the “mini-project” to have fun with the HTML5 canvas element.

Here’s a primer on Life from Math.com. Visit Mansfield’s site and try out some different patterns and see what evolves. The screenshot above is about a dozen generations into a game that started with the word “Webmonkey” written on a 100×20 grid.