Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art

Create code art, visualizations, and interactive applications with this powerful yet simple computer language and programming environment

Learn how to code 2D and 3D animation, pixel-level imaging, motion effects, and physics simulations

Take a creative and fun approach to learning creative computer programming If you're interested in creating cutting-edge code-based art and animations, you've come to the right place! Processing (available at www.processing.org) is a revolutionary open source programming language and environment designed to bridge the gap between programming and art, allowing non-programmers to learn programming fundamentals as easily as possible, and empowering anyone to produce beautiful creations using math patterns. With the software freely available, Processing provides an accessible alternative to using Flash for creative coding and computational artboth on and off the Web. This book is written especially for artists, designers, and other creative professionals and students exploring code art, graphics programming, and computational aesthetics. The book provides a solid and comprehensive foundation in programming, including object-oriented principles, and introduces you to the easy-to-grasp Processing language, so no previous coding experience is necessary. The book then goes through using Processing to code lines, curves, shapes, and motion, continuing to the point where you'll have mastered Processing and can really start to unleash your creativity with realistic physics, interactivity, and 3D! In the final chapter, you'll even learn how to extend your Processing skills by working directly with the powerful Java programming languagethe language Processing itself is built with.

You'll learn:

The fundamentals of creative computer programming—from procedural programming, to object-oriented programming, to pure Java programming

How to virtually draw, paint, and sculpt using computer code and clearly explained mathematical concepts

2D and 3D programming techniques, motion design, and cool graphics effects

How to code your own pixel-level imaging effects, such as image contrast, color saturation, custom gradients and more

Advanced animation techniques, including realistic physics and artificial life simulation

Summary of Contents

PART ONE: THEORY OF PROCESSING AND COMPUTATIONAL ART

Chapter 1: Code Art

Chapter 2: Creative Coding

Chapter 3: Code Grammar 101

Chapter 4: Computer Graphics, the Fun, Easy Way

Chapter 5: The Processing Environment

PART TWO: PUTTING THEORY INTO PRACTICE

Chapter 6: Lines

Chapter 7: Curves

Chapter 8: Object-Oriented Programming

Chapter 9: Shapes

Chapter 10: Color and Imaging

Chapter 11: Motion

Chapter 12: Interactivity

Chapter 13: 3D

Chapter 14: 3D Rendering in Java Mode

PART THREE: REFERENCE

Appendix A: Processing Language API

Appendix B: Math Reference

Appendix C: Integrating Processing within Java

About the Author

With an eclectic background combining elements of painting and programming, Ira Greenberg has been a painter, 2D and 3D animator, print designer, web and interactive designer/developer, programmer, art director, creative director, managing director, art professor, and now author. He holds a BFA from Cornell University and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ira has steadily exhibited his work, consulted within industry, and lectured widely throughout his career. He was affiliated with the Flywheel Gallery in Piermont, New York, and the Bowery Gallery in New York City. He was a managing director and creative director for H2O Associates in New York's Silicon Alley, where he helped build a new media division during the golden days of the dot-com boom and then bust—barely parachuting back to safety in the ivory tower. Since then, he has been inciting students to create inspirational new media art; lecturing; and holding residencies at numerous institutions, including Seton Hall University; Monmouth University; University of California, Santa Barbara; Kutztown University; Moravian College; Northampton Community College's Digital Art Institute; Lafayette College; Lehigh University; the Art Institute of Seattle; Studio Art Centers International (in Florence, Italy); and the City and Guilds of London Art School.

Currently, Ira is Associate Professor at Miami University (Ohio), where he has a joint appointment within the School of Fine Arts and Interactive Media Studies program. He is also an affiliate member of the Department of Computer Science and Systems Analysis. His research interests include aesthetics and computation, expressive programming, emergent forms, net-based art, artificial intelligence, physical computing, and computer art pedagogy (and anything else that tickles his fancy). During the last few years, he has been torturing defenseless art students with trigonometry, algorithms, and object-oriented programming, and is excited to spread this passion to the rest of the world.

Ira lives in charming Oxford, Ohio with his wife, Robin; his son, Ian; his daughter, Sophie; their squirrel-obsessed dog, Heidi; and their night prowler cat, Moonshadow.