Catalogue / Plate 55← All plates

Particle foundry

Turn a cloud of points into your own word.

55 / Canvas 2D · Typography · Pointer

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.
  1. 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.
  2. Interpolate the same point set towards the targets, then apply dispersion, yaw, pitch and automatic rotation before projecting and depth sorting the points.
  3. Capture pointer dragging on the sculpture and provide equivalent focused arrow key rotation. Leave Escape available to the popup and release listeners on destruction.
  4. Keep word and formation controls visible, fold the secondary parameters below, and save the selected view as a PNG.
  5. 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.