The Tools I Use

I often get asked at art shows how I make my art. I'm often the only artist there using digital fabrication, so I suspect many people haven't seen work like mine before. While I get excited describing how I make my art, I wanted somewhere to point people for a more detailed explanation of my process and the tools I use, so this post is the result. I ended up going into a lot of detail than expected while writing, so this may be geared more towards people who are interested in making art like mine rather than those who are just curious. Hopefully you'll find value no matter which group you fall into.

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Diffusion-Limited Aggregation

This post is about my code for doing Diffusion-limited Aggregation using NumPy and Shapely.

According to Wikipedia,

Diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) is the process whereby particles undergoing a random walk due to Brownian motion cluster together to form aggregates of such particles.

Basically, DLA involves a bunch of particles "floating" in a "fluid", simulated using a random walk, that stick to a growing group of particles when they get close enough. The result is an interesting branching pattern called a Brownian tree.

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My Journey with Programming, Python, and Creative Coding

My first exposure to programming was in a computer science course in high school, where we did some very simple programs in C. I then took an introductory CS course in college, where we also used C. I enjoyed both of those courses, but to be honest I didn't really catch the programming bug at that time. I continued my studies in Civil Engineering and commissioned into the Air Force after school, where I did zero programming.

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