kfirmanty / squiggle

langjam002

squiggle

post jam language version is here: squiggle

squiggle is DSL to describe visual patterns and was created as an entry for langjam002

A single squiggle executes stack based language with some special operators like + modifying the squiggle rgb vector.

The language operates on patterns. Each pattern is denoted by [] and at least one pattern must exist in code.

This is one of the simplest squiggle: [1 1 1 +]. Each tick it moves one pixel to the right and adds 1 1 1 to its rgb vector. If it reaches horizontal or vertical end it wraps.

After each tick the squiggle colors the pixel under its position to the contents of its rgb vector.

Each tick one pattern is executed. If squiggle code defines more than one pattern: for example [1 1 1 +] [2 2 2 +] then it will alternate between executing [1 1 1 +] and [2 2 2 +] after every tick.

Patterns can also be repeated more than once so this: [1 1 1 +]3 [2 2 2 +] will repeat [1 1 1 +] for 3 ticks and then [2 2 2 +] for 1 tick.

squiggle code can also contain conditionals. For it to work it is possible to define code blocks which are denoted by () parens.

For example this code [(1 1 1) (3 3 3) 128 x > if +] will add 1 1 1 to rgb vector when x is less or equal to 128 and 3 3 3 otherwise.

For convience the squiggle interpreter accepts config .json files which can define multiple squiggles.

The main idea of squiggle is inspired by how image was drawed in old crt television. squiggle can have n different squiggles which can draw on the same canvas, but are not restricted to simple left to right as in crt beam.

example config file

{
    "width": 256,
    "height": 256,
    "blendingMode": "ADDITIVE",
    "squiggles": [
        {
            "code": "[1 1 1 +]"
        },
        {
            "code": "[2 -2 7 +] [3 -1 4 +]"
        }
    ]
}

which should yield following image:

how to run

npm i
node src/index.js examples/basic_conditional.json

which should result in file output.ppm being generated in project directory.

gallery

todo

• allow for squiggles to communicate through queues
• better docs
• experiment with operators that can change the code that squiggle is executing like increment all numeric values, swapping their signs, changing operator at random etc