The Java Applet Art Gallery
Animated abstract art for the Java-enabled
These images are not from traditional GIF or JPEG image files. They
are being produced right before your eyes by little computer programs
("applets") written in the "Java" computer language.
If you don't have Java set up on your machine you won't see them.
Click inside any image to stop or restart its action.
Notes on the Random Rectangles
applet
Notes on the do-nothing applet
Notes on the Spreading Waves applet
Objects in the picture below are links
If you have Java enabled, you should see a picture here. It should act
somewhat like a Usemap, except that it's easier to set up odd shapes to
click on.
NOTES on this applet
Notes on the Random Rectangles
applet
This was my first Java applet, and is quite simple. It just draws
rectangles of random size and random color on top of whatever has gone
before. That's IT.
Notes on the do-nothing applet
The thin image that looks like a thick horizontal rule and appears to do
nothing but change color if you click on it actually serves a purpose.
Some versions of some browsers have a bug that makes animation look jerky
unless an applet is constantly redrawing itself. But making the others
redraw themselves all the time can cause other problems, such as
flickering. Since this one never changes, you don't notice when it
redraws. So by having it constantly redrawing it keeps the browser
informed that the others may need updating. Clicking on it stops and
starts it. Green = running, Red = stopped. Depending on your browser it
may or may not affect how the other applets operate.
Notes on the Spreading Waves
applet
I was reading an article in an engineering journal about the design of
cardiac defibrillators, and it described how cells in the heart wait in a
resting state until some trigger stimulus causes them to contract, then
can't be triggered again until after a recovery period. When a cell is
triggered, it triggers any of its neighbors that are ready to be
triggered, resulting in a wave of contraction moving through the tissue.
The article then went on to describe how the waves behave under normal and
abnormal conditions, and how electric fields from a defibrillator affect
them.
I based this applet very loosely on that concept, perhaps loosely enough
to call it "artistic inspiration" rather than "modeling the phenomenon".
I used three distinct populations of cells: Red, Green, and Blue. They
occupy the same space without interacting. Instead of having a single
pacemaker I apply stimuli to random cells every so often. When a cell is
triggered it becomes visible, and then slowly fades. After a cell's color
has faded the cell takes several cycles to recover before it can again be
triggered. The three resulting sets of colored waves overlap to blend
into other colors.
About the Author
(40k GIF)
This page was created by Tom Digby and
is copyrighted with a fairly
liberal "fair use" policy.
Email = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us
Home Page = http://www.well.com/user/bubbles/