Catalogue / Plate 55← All plates
Particle foundry
Turn a cloud of points into your own word.
Sampleton Type Foundry
Give a cloud of points something to say.
Shape and rotation
Remake it
Build 'Particle foundry' for an invented Sampleton Type Foundry. Draw a projected cloud of 2,400 points that can reform into a sphere, the visitor's word, a torus or a single helix. Rasterise short words into target positions and move the same points towards the chosen formation. Add Your word, Formation and Reform as a word, with Dispersion and Rotation in an advanced disclosure. Drag the sculpture to turn it and offer arrow key rotation on the focused canvas. Use geometric interpolation rather than claiming a gravity simulation. Add Play, Pause, Reset and Keep the sculpture as PNG. Keep the scene silent, fit its complete composition inside the available canvas and allow controls to scroll on a narrow screen. Use native labelled inputs, text of at least 12px and a still initial state for reduced motion.
- Generate a deterministic sphere of 2,400 points and target arrays for a torus and a single helix. Rasterise the visitor's word to an offscreen canvas and sample its opaque pixels for word targets.
- Interpolate the same point set towards the targets, then apply dispersion, yaw, pitch and automatic rotation before projecting and depth sorting the points.
- Capture pointer dragging on the sculpture and provide equivalent focused arrow key rotation. Leave Escape available to the popup and release listeners on destruction.
- Keep word and formation controls visible, fold the secondary parameters below, and save the selected view as a PNG.
- Contain the composition on resize and pause autonomous interpolation under reduced motion, while a manual formation or rotation edit still produces a useful still redraw.
Notes: when it suits, when it does not, how it fails
- When it suits
- A short typographic reveal or a visitor-controlled point sculpture.
- When it does not
- Large body copy, medical graphics or precise 3D inspection.
- How it fails
- Unreadable long words; input is limited and fitted to the canvas.
Original procedural artwork for Sampleton Type Foundry, an invented business. Drawn live with visitor-controlled state and no external media.