Buckminster Fullers Jitterbug

Another small demo inspired by an article of journal 'Spektrum der Wissenschaft'. Its a simulation of a so called dancing octahedron (or Buckminster Fullers jitterbug), where trianglepoints are connected pairwise. In the simulation having only the triangles would make the object fold together. Thus auxilliary structure (gray lines) is needed to shape its form and behavior. In the demo the object can be dragged around (mouse/touch).

► Start

Canvas experiment: Penrose Tiling

I experimented with an algorithm which generates a penrose tiling. This pattern consists of 2 tiles: and is non-periodic (never repeats itself).

►Start demo

The current algorithm is still suboptimal, there remain gaps in the pattern. The algorithm works as follows: Before a tile is added, the local neighborhood is checked for upcoming conflicts. Since only a local environment is checked, there can still emerge conflicts (gaps) for the global pattern. To improve the algorithm, one could introduce heuristics or make it interactive: a user could remove pattern areas which contain gaps. Then the generating could be restarted in this areas. (The demo is inspired by an article in the journal Spektrum d.W.)