This looks like a really fun open source project. Particularly thrilled to have another way to generate ascii fonts or even better, it seems to have a font editor to make your own ascii font. A lot of the fonts are pretty cheesy, but some of the 3d fonts are quite lovely. Do you have any animations to show us? I couldn't get the animator to output correctly.
yes, the ascii fonts are called 'figlets' and you can collect them on the web i believe but i haven't tried this yet. making them would be much better i'm sure. it would be cool if there were a font import tool for the figlets. my piece on Chladni plates was a gif animation using jave. the interface is a little clunky and non-intuitive. its been awhile since i tried any, but i know it works.. you build to the desired length by adding frames in the animator applet (you can copy the same frame over and over and then manipulate it by jumping through the list from the dropmenu in the main window. you shouldnt need to fiddle with the anim. applet again once youve built the frames..) what i did for the chladni piece was to do 3 different 'coding' styles for each import 'grouping'.. i imported a c.plate changing the 'coding' or visual algo to make 3 different copy-frames of the same image, this gave the same pattern a kind of 'moving stillness' and let the progression move at a more readable pace.. if you keep fiddling with it you'll figure it out..maybe! i can't remember but maybe I had to do some tricky business with photoshop at the end to get it perfect. crap, i can't recall. i'll try to make one when i can and see what issues i have. fbf animation is always a little tedious to me. but i really thought the plates needed to move as the original experiment is based upon the movement of sand upon a drum-head or resonator. blahblah anywhoo---> Here's the original posts: ASCII permutations of a short range of square Chladni plates. http://www.hevanet.com/solipsis/desktopcollage/chladni1an.gif here are some the original drawings Chladni did. http://www.hevanet.com/solipsis/desktopcollage/original.gif The basic experiment that is given the name "Chladni" consists of a plate or drum of some shape, possibly constrained at the edges or at a point in the center, and forced to vibrate historically with a violin bow or more recently with a speaker. A fine sand or powder is sprinkled on the surface and it is allowed to settle. It will do so at those parts of the surface that are not vibrating, namely at the nodes of vibration. The equation for the zeros of the standing wave on a square Chladni plate (side length L) constrained at the center is given by the following. cos(n pi x / L) cos(m pi y / L) - cos(m pi x / L) cos(n pi y / L) = 0 where n and m are integers. The Chladni patterns for n,m between 1 and 5 are shown in the ASCII animation. Some Further background: Ernest Florens Friedrich Chladni (1756 - 1827) performed many experiments to study the nodes of vibration of circular and square plates, generally fixed in the center and driven with a violin bow. The modes of vibration were identified by scattering salt or sand on the plate, these small particles end up in the places of zero vibration. Ernst Chladni first demonstrated this at the French Academy of Science in 1808, it caused such interest that the Emperor offered a kilogram of gold to the first person who could explain the patterns. The Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Florens_Friedrich_Chladni Chladni's influence extended to Johann Wilhelm Ritter, who in 1801 discovered ultraviolet rays and in 1803 the polarization of electrodes in batteries. "It would be beautiful if what became externally clear here were also exactly what the sound pattern is for us inwardly: a light pattern, fire-writing," Ritter observed of Chladni's figures. "Every sound would then have its own letter directly to hand." Ritter's own avowed aim was "to rediscover, or else to find the primeval or natural script by means of electricity." Ritter was a major figure for Walter Benjamin (disclosing to him "what romantic esotericism is all about"), prompting the speculation that "written language grows out of music and not directly from the sounds of the spoken word." Much under the sway of the Kabbalah and the Pythagorean doctrine of cosmic harmony as transmitted through Hermetic lore, Benjamin envisions the word as a trace of primal pulsation (not unlike the hieroglyphic suggestiveness of the Chladni figures.): One is tempted to say that the very fact that [words] still have a meaning in their isolation lends a threatening quality to this remnant of meaning they have kept. In this way language is broken up so as to acquire a changed and intensified meaning in its fragments. With the baroque the place of the capital letter was established in German orthography. It is not only the aspiration to pomp, but at the same time the disjunctive, atomizing principle of the allegorical approach which is asserted here. In its individual parts fragmented language has ceased merely to serve the process of communication, and as a new-born object acquires a dignity equal to that of gods, rivers, virtues and similar natural forms which fuse into the allegorical. In 1928 Benjamin's friend Theodor Adorno, adressing the musical implications of mechanical piano scrolls, recalled Ritter's reference to Chladni's figures as "the script-like Ur-images of sound," adding that "recent technological development has, in any case, continued what was begun there: the possibility of inscribing music without it ever having sounded has simultaneously reified it in an ever more inhuman manner and also brought it mysteriously closer to the character of writing and language."
From _Imagining Language_ by Jed Rasula and Steve McCaffery P. 477
