Generating lissajous curves in Processing
Lissajous curves are a particular set of graphs generated by the parametric formula x = A cos(ax), y = B sin(bx). This already looks boring.
Look, I am as bored as you. I mean who even likes math?? (I do, but that's not a story for today).
Formulas are lame, but sometimes they are special and generate really interesting outcomes, if you know how to produce them. Luckily, this is one of those instances.
Clone the repository on your pc and open it with Processing. It's as easy as that.
All the variables inside the file named settings.pde can be changed by the final user (you). Feel free to edit them and to experiment a little bit with the final product.
Next to each variable there's a comment describing what it does.
I programmed the code with a few shortcuts:
- Press left and right arrow keys to change the animation duration
- Press up and down arrow keys to change the initial angle
- Press E to record the animation - the output frames will be saved in folder called frames
- Press Q to toggle between black and white and colors
- Press W to display the current frames per second on the screen
- Press R to change the rotation direction (clockwise or anti-clockwise)
- Click on the window to reset the animation
This is what you will see when you run the code:
These are some converted GIFs (they look pretty choppy!). Inside the folder /output/videos/ you will find some higher quality videos (all recorded in as-smooth-as-butter 120 fps).
Final images
Midway screenshots
This project is distributed under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.