TRIPLE Pendulum!

Chaos Calligraphy | Triple Pendulum

The Chaos Calligraphy project is intended as a way to visualize Chaos Theory.  The piece is displayed on a 9600 x 2760 pixel screen.  Chaos Calligraphy uses randomly generated triple pendulums to plot chaotic curves along the length of the screen.  

Whoa! Chaos!

The curves plotted by Chaos Calligraphy are a visual display of Chaos Theory.  By observing the pendulum trails, the viewer can observe the nature of a chaotic system; as it begins a with randomized initial state, develops a chaotic motion, and settles into self-similar cycle, however still retaining chaos within the 'redundancy'.

One pass of triple pendulum

Chaos Calligraphy begins by creating a triple pendulum, with random arm lengths and random mass values, at the top left of the screen.  Chaos Calligraphy will then plot the path of the triple pendulum as it moves horizontally across the screen.  Once the curve reaches the end of the screen, Chaos Calligraphy will generate another random triple pendulum placed beneath the previous line.  Chaos Calligraphy will trace six different triple pendulums on the screen and then reset at the top of the screen, drawing over the came canvas.  The colors of the curves are based on the positions of the pendulum ends in respect to one another.  The use of color in this piece is an additional layer of visualizing chaos.  Similar to calligraphy, the width of the stroke is based on the velocity of the pendulum arm.  

Additional examples.....

Double Pendulum

Chaos | Double Pendulum

In order to visualize Chaos theory using double pendulums I decided to use the points of the pendulums as pen points, writing calligraphic lines across the screen.

So the results were some what successful.  The plotted lines created by the double pendulums appear to be drawn with some sort of calligraphic pen.  The colors are created by cycling through the color wheel.  Hue is based on the current time (t), the saturation and value are based on the velocity of the pendulum.

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As further exploration of this project I will attempt to embrace the calligraphic nature of the lines.  I would also like to explore additional options of making this piece more visually appealing.  During critiques it was suggested that I use a more chaotic input for the color value, currently the color is very predictable.  Size of pen stroke will also be considered in future iterations.