buildz

Color By Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 15:23:00 +0000

We have all been rasterized and reduced to pixels that live on each other’s screens.

Which got me thinking about how much of what we see is really a trick of the eye in pixel graphics.

And thinking about the long history of this kind of abstraction underlying our perception of smooth imagery, usually done for the purposes of mass production

Many of these mass production methods have been recycled back into the fine arts world, see Roy Lichtenstein and Chuck Close . . .

And I got to playing around with a simple method in Dynamo to take regular photo inputs and convert them to the familiar CMYK color space for physical printing

so that I could decompose any image and recompose it in a new format

One that has multiple readings, from the up close to the resolved distance view

And then making more of a physicality or requirement for presence to really see the drawings at multiple levels

And trying to get a range of drawings, one that is seen from a distance, on that is seen in extreme close up and all the ranges in between

And then thinking about how to you go about sharing this experience with people with whom you aren’t physically present.

Production of these images created an issue, usually you see pen plotters at high speed

But the reality is that they

are

fact

very

slow

So I went about experimenting with a kind of cursive script to create variable density of lines

Trying continuous and discontinuous drawing styles

The first tries were a bit blocky

But they got smoother

Images need to be refined to work with this method. I took emojis as a starting point.

Revit is really the only decent output method I've found, with each color layer having many thousands of NURBS curves, or single curves with thousands of control points.

But then starting to get the idea of multiple paintings in one, and also the speed of the more continuous line

(of course, if you're going to do a peach you need to do an eggplant)

Pushing the method a little further, this one is done with a single continuous 3rd degree NURBS curve spiraling through 12,000 control points

And the most recent drawing with a discontinuous spiral in 4 parts.

A Sample Dynamo File if you want to give it a try

Riffing on Daily Minimal no.661 series 2

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sat, 20 Feb 2021 19:48:00 +0000

Unpacking the logic that is built into a design is one one my favorite things to do. It's relaxing, very flow-inducing. While there are invariably multiple "right" or effective paths to get to the eventual result that is represented in the finished design, different paths are more elegant. The challenge is to find the simplest path . . . that is, it's really easy to find a method that works, but can you find a brief explanation that also creates flexibility to change the design, and represent it in a way that you can share with others?

The idea of reverse engineering a design makes a whole other kind of art appreciation emerge. Lots of stuff that I just enjoyed in the past becomes completely distracting. Daily Minimal, "an ongoing artistic performance based on minimalism and geometry" by Pierre V., is a parade of systematic drawing studies that begs to be unpacked. I fixated on this one, no. 661 series 2, a few weeks ago.

Systematic, balanced, awesome. If you weren't going to draw it one piece at a time, how might you think about doing it? And how to do it with variations.

I figured the basis is an array of wedges, so let's start there and then figure out the rest later

Starting with the basics of a Center and a Point

Then deriving a vector from center to Point

Using that vector to derive a line, and rotation of that line around the center

Lofting those lines to make a surface

Then repeat this process with a whole bunch of starter points and various rotations

So far so good, but this is where things get interesting. There's a visual assumption of 3 dimensionality here, despite the aggressive flatness of the graphics. The sense of overlap, combination, and negative space is pretty rich in the original. So I figured making an actual 3 dimensional aspect and working back to a 2D was the approach

Extrude everything up, but in a random step, so assortments of extrusions end up at the same elevation

Union the whole thing into a solid, so you get big planes of continuous surface

Grab all the horizontal surfaces and move them down to the same level

Thicken the surfaces and make a thin shell to create space between

Now I can just start manufacturing new ones with different densities, # of pieces, etc.

All fine, but eventually I want to plot these on my pen plotter, so I need to make a crap-ton of poché. I was using some hatch-fill tools in Inkscape, but found that it was just faster and better controls to do a giant intersection in Dynamo.

All done! Ready to export 718 x 6 curves to an SVG file.

Dynamo File. (Uses some of the Math.Random function enhancements added in 2.10, which you can get here or make sure you have a 2022 version of Revit, Alias, Advance Steel, Civil 3D, FormIt, or Robot Structural Analysis,)

Pumpkin variatals

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 14:10:00 +0000

Happy Halloween!

This time around it's a cold and wintery one, with snow on the ground here in New England. Pandemic is likely going to mean it's also quiet tonight, without much trick or treating. Just another reason to remember to VOTE! Let's get this pandemic under control with a little respect for science and public health . . . if you are going candy-hunting tonight, DOUBLE MASK!

Because I am an exceedingly lazy person, this year's pumpkin(s) are a variety of the Adler pottery life drawing exercise from a few weeks back. The Dynamo definition is a little bit simplified from that one for the basic form making, but there's additional complexity around color and making the stem and face.

The only changes to make it work in Generative Design for Revit is setting the "Slidey Bits" on the right side to "is input"

And adding an "is ouput" over in the pink section on the right to make sure I'm getting a good stem. I was trying out a new way to get some nice more organic taper to the stem with some Geometry.Intersect, and sometimes the boolean operation is a little dicey.

If you download the .dyn file, you can open it in Dynamo for Revit 2021, and "Export to Generative Design" then "Create Study"

Pick the Dynamo file you just created from the menu, and get started with a "Random" generation of 40

You could optimize . . . but really, this one is just going to optimize for a nice juicy stem. Which is great, if that's your thing. Otherwise, mess around with the file and see if there are other aspects that you want to favor. Personally I have been digging the variations with a taller mouth, kind of in the "Scream" sensibility

Enjoy the autumn, make your civic voice heard, and wear a mask regardless of costume.

Download the pumpkin file from here

Life Drawing: MSSM Associates generative towers

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 20:21:00 +0000

Some folks on the team are getting ready to teach a generative design workshop at ACADIA in a couple of weeks, and part of this has involved looking at some massing studies. We have a study inspired by a project by MSSM Associates that we've kicked around for a year or so, and this morning I decided to give it another try going back to the basic principle as shown in these diagrams.

Download the Dynamo file from here and give a try

Life drawing: reverse-engineering the Digital Futures logo

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 20:34:00 +0000

I'm stressed out, so I'm doing a lot of drawing with pencil and paper and Dynamo. Today let's talk about computationally life drawing the Digital Futures' logo and other things you can do to cope with stress. (Spoiler, for U.S. folks: vote. Also, you should vote.)

BTW, I have no affiliation with Digital Futures, I was just really intrigued by their logo and liked the puzzle of reverse engineering it.

Why drawing and what's its relationship to stress? There's a lot of talk lately about "self-care" and doing the things you need to keep your body and mind healthy. Unemployment rates are huge, folks are still trapped inside, the sky turned red on the west coast. When the plane depressurizes you need to put your own mask on first, right? Depression is a pretty sensible response to the state of the world, and in order to act for change, effective citizens of a democracy need to NOT be paralyzed by despair. So when things are topsy-turvy, make sure to take care of yourself. Drawing and thinking about beauty can be very soothing.

However.

For most readers of this blog (US based, middle-upper income professionals), you either have a little spare money (have professional employment) or time (do not have professional employment). I'm sure there are outliers, and children can be joyful little vampires of both. If you have a little money, please donate some of it before you read any further (I recommend this and this, but you do you). For those who have time, please volunteer some of it. And then, by all means, let's get right to the self care. Take your time, we'll wait.

Ok, good?

And THANK YOU!

Like I said, my self-care is drawing. Well, that and binging Legion on Hulu. And a friend of mine just distilled 3 gallons of my old homemade wine into a grappa-like jet-fuel that fills me with chemical joy. But otherwise I'm all in on drawing.

Back to the delightful Digital Futures' shrimp-thing. Mine's not perfect, but I think this gets most of the ideas. Take a look at it for a second, try to think about how the mechanics of the pattern work.

Stepwise, let's walk through making it.

Array 2 rows of point in polar coordinates, connect with lines

Put a point on each line from about the end, stepping along it, then maxing out at start of the line

Probably a lot of ways to do this, but I did it with a conditional.

Drop the first line then put a point at the same parameter and connect the dots

Do the same from 2 to 0 parameter, with a flattening out of the steps on the "outside" of the lines, then stepping inward.

Loft between each line in the 2 sets of lines to make a surface for each segment

Extract the perimeters, make a polycurve, offset them inwards, fillet

Make all of the above into a custom node, and then run it with 3 different radii.

Rotate each set of segments

Color each surface by the distance of the parameter space on each surface from the center and you have a delicious shrimp!

Stir, simmer, serve with noodles.

Dynamo file and associated custom node here.

Please find the things that help make you healthy and functional over the next month. We need you strong and healthy to vote and help others get to the polls.

Fall in New England

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0000

I would sacrifice some non-trivial amount of my life if I could live all of it in the Fall.

It's not that I dislike the other seasons, they're lovely in their own ways. I'm a New England boy, and four distinct seasons have always been a part of how the world works.

But Autumn is when it all happens. Plants ripen, the air smells right. It has some rot in it from dead leaves and probably a little wood-smoke from somewhere.

I'm feeling particularly grateful for the Fall when I smell the tiny wisps of smoke. I'm thinking about friends and family on the West Coast, choking in clouds of it and fleeing wildfires. With the recognition that recurrent and amplified disasters like this are tangible pieces of climate change, the current perfection of a North East Autumn feels more precious and tenuous.

So we try and preserve what we have. Fall is when the wine making happens. Or, around the Kron place, a thick, bubbly, and coarse grape cider.

And when I say coarse, I mean seriously raw and unprocessed.

We Pick

Crush

Ferment for a day

Stick a siphon into the puddle at the bottom of the pile of pulp

And bottle it up!

The whole process is over in a couple days and we're sipping pro-biotic goodness, replenishing the hell out of our gut flora. We used to filter, sterilize, balance sugars, press, apply various kinds of nutrient mixes and generally try and control the process. If it all worked out and the stars aligned, it would end up tasting like a very funky and slightly sour bottle of cheap rosé. So we changed the approach, did it fast and chunky, and called it cider instead of wine. It's pretty unique, and I can say with the completely un-objective palate of a proud father that it's friggin' awesome.

Over the years, I've found that it's also not very stable, so best to drink it immediately. This has some . . . positive and negative aspects. This season we made about 12 gallons from approximately 220 pounds of grapes and I hope to have it all gone before election day.

A new addition to the seasonal routine is cleaning a few pounds of whole grapes and pickling them in grain alcohol. (Side note: because of Covid, we have a large supply of 95% Ethanol, as we stocked up when all the hand sanitizer disappeared from stores. Having abundant, pure, food-grade ethanol presents a number of opportunities . . . put it in a spray bottle for cleaning anything from hands to computer screens to apples. You can sterilize your sharp instruments and clean wounds. Light fires, make tinctures, and dissolve a surprising variety of household items, all without going blind! Every well supplied house would do well to keep a jug or six handy.) After a couple of months, you have a sweet and flavorful liquor that tastes like the Platonic Ideal of "grape". I recommend aging it in the freezer if you have space.

Pairs well with a smelly cheese, but not with open flames.

Don't forget to compost your leftovers.

Computational Life Drawing

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 22:42:00 +0000

Back when the world was analog and we made fire by rubbing 2 sticks together, I took a few "life drawing" courses. I always liked how form and content were cleanly divided. It didn't really matter what you were representing, you drew a handful of Legos or a flower or whatever else was put on the table at the start of class. The point was to exercise your capacity to represent some thing, compare the outcome of drawing to a benchmark reality, and think about the relationship of the representation and the thing represented.

Life drawing isn't necessarily the same for everyone, for me it was a calibration exercise, comparing what you think you see and how you represent it. It's also very meditative. My friend Nono has a fantastic approach to this way of working that you can see over at Getting Simple.

I've been doing computational life drawing, picking up stuff from the world and taking the challenge to re-represent it. Sometimes I try and reverse engineer another computational idea, or try and reproduce a pattern found out in the world.

Today's exercise was making a Johnathan Adler pot.

Dynamo file here

Music has scales, sportsball has batting practice . . .

30ish Drawings in 30ish Days

noreply@blogger.com (Zach Kron) — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 17:10:00 +0000

This is a 15 minute summary presentation of what I was up to during my Fall 2019 Sabbatical. Mostly about a collection of drawings made over the 6 weeks.

Recording was from a zoom call, so apologies that audio is not awesome.

For a more complete catalog of these images and process, feel free to check out this gallery.