der hess » Programming http://blog.derhess.de am medialen werkeln Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:00:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Book review: Developing Flex 4 Components http://blog.derhess.de/2012/02/01/book-review-developing-flex-4-components/ http://blog.derhess.de/2012/02/01/book-review-developing-flex-4-components/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:00:38 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1747
  • Book review: Adobe Flex – Training from the source
  • Book review: Generative Gestaltung
  • Book review: Form + Code (Generative Art & Design)
    • ]]>     A couple of weeks ago I finished reading  the book "Developing Flex 4 Components" by Mike Jones. The reviews on Amazon.com were very promising and during my Flex 3 developing I always wished such a book. For this reason my expectations were very high.

    I wasn't disappointed. The book is a perfect continuation of the Flex 4 beginner book "Flex 4 - Training from the source". Even it repeats some content like Data Binding and basics of developing custom compontents, it was enjoyable to read. Mike Jones has a really nice writing style for explaining the core concepts of the Flex 4 component and skinning architecture very easily. These chapters are really one of the best availabe informations to  these kind of topics. Completely new for me was the chapter about "working with Metadata". I learnt some deep concepts behind the Meta-tag usage of the Flex Framework. The same is valid for the "Distribution" part of the book. The development worklflow with Flash Library Project, Component Integraton in Flash Builder 4, and the Documentation part are very helpful for my future projects.

    I can highly recommend this book for experienced beginner and intermediate Flex Developers. For really advanced Flex developers I missed some more deeper information. Here is my wishlist for a second edition (maybe it comes some time?!):

    • Data Binding: This topic is mentioned but I wish more deeper information like the presentation "Diving in the Flex Data Binding Waters" by Michael Labriola and the compound data object approach  by Olikhver Sergey
    • Component Skinning architecture for multi-screen objects: If you have a very complex application or you have to create various skins for various devices, you can run very fast in an architecture nightmare. See the article Advanced Flex 4 Skinning Techniques by Pavel Jacko
    • Differences between mobile component and desktop component development
    • For some certain cases the hack with the mx_internal namespace makes still sense.  A short segment or a mini chapter about the use of this approach would be nice.
    • Test Driven Development with Flex Unit: I don't know if Flex Unit really belongs to this kind of book, but if you are creating a component library, then you should use Flex Unit. Just for ensure the quality of your compontes for upcoming versions. Especially, writing and managing Flex Unit code for visual components is always tricky. Some advices for this topic would be so nice.

    That is all what I can say. Mike Jones wrote a really good book about Flex 4 component development. It is a must-buy for every Flex Developer.

    Related posts:

    1. Book review: Adobe Flex – Training from the source
    2. Book review: Generative Gestaltung
    3. Book review: Form + Code (Generative Art & Design)

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2012/02/01/book-review-developing-flex-4-components/feed/ 0 "     Book review: Adobe Flex – Training from the source http://blog.derhess.de/2011/12/16/book-review-adobe-flex-training-from-the-source/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/12/16/book-review-adobe-flex-training-from-the-source/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:20:58 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1736
  • Book review: Developing Flex 4 Components
  • An Adobe Air Component for the Vimeo Moogaloop API
  • Book review: Generative Gestaltung
    • ]]>     A couple of weeks ago I read the book Flex 4 - Training from the source. It is the officially introduction book for Flex 4 from Adobe.  I was very curious about the book, because I started learning Flex 3 with no good start. For Flex 4 I wanted to learn it how I like to learn new things.

    Content review:

    The books starts with the typical introduction about Rich Internet Applications. I skipped this chapter, because it is always the same bla bla... The chapters 2 talks about the new Flash Builder IDE. Even I was pretty familiar with the IDE I could find some nice features during reading this chapters. So I learnt already something new. Especially, the chapter 3 and 4 gave me a really good introduction and understanding about the new layout architecture and component infrastructure. The chapters Handling Events, Using Remote XML Data, Creating Classes are not so interesting for an already experienced Flex Developer. The difference between Flex 3 and Flex 4 is not big in these cases. The chapter about Data Binding was good to read again, because Binding is very helpful but sometimes not so easy to deal with. I highly recommend the chapter 10 about DataGroups and Lists and the chapter 12 about Item Renderes. On these topics the change from Flex 3 to Flex 3 is very big. Unfortunately, the chapter 15 about Formatters and Validators is pretty outdatet, because Flex 4.5 offers new Spark based Formatters and Validators. The last three chapters about Skinning and custom Actionscript components are very basic written. For beginners easy to understand and experienced Flex Developers get an idea about the differences between Flex 3 and Flex 4 component development.

    Structure:

    I have to admit I am keen on the book structure. The chapters are structured like school lessons. Every lessons has an approximate time, which works very well in my case. Additionally, it is very useful for organizing the learning with your daily schedule. However, every end of a chapter provides a good summary of the learnt content. So you automatically repeat the learnt stuff. The code examples are nice described and easy to work with, too.

    Result:

    Flex 4 - Training from the source is a really good book for Flex 4 beginners.  Already experienced Flex Developers can get bored about some content. It depends on your learning type. I like reading books, so for me it was perfect to get an overview. If you like more reading online resources or watching video tutorials, then go for it. There are enough documentations and tutorials available.

    Related posts:

    1. Book review: Developing Flex 4 Components
    2. An Adobe Air Component for the Vimeo Moogaloop API
    3. Book review: Generative Gestaltung

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/12/16/book-review-adobe-flex-training-from-the-source/feed/ 2 "     My most important Twitter Messages #12 http://blog.derhess.de/2011/11/26/my-most-important-twitter-messages-12/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/11/26/my-most-important-twitter-messages-12/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:45:57 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1723
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #10
  • My most important Twitter Messages #11
    • ]]>     Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from August - November 2011:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    • Our lecture from the "Design the Future" series at Carnegie Mellon University is now online

    Info Design and Visualization

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Physical Computing

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex

    Related posts:

    1. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #10
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #11

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/11/26/my-most-important-twitter-messages-12/feed/ 0 "     My most important Twitter Messages #11 http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/31/my-most-important-twitter-messages-11-2/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/31/my-most-important-twitter-messages-11-2/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:00:29 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1683
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #4
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
    • ]]>     Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from June - August 2011:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    Info Design and Visualization

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Physical Computing

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex

    Related posts:

    1. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #4
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #5

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/31/my-most-important-twitter-messages-11-2/feed/ 0 "     Flash talks to Max MSP via OSC http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/16/flash-talks-to-max-msp-via-osc/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/16/flash-talks-to-max-msp-via-osc/#comments Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:38:25 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1549
  • My most important Twitter Messages #9
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
    • ]]>

    As I already mentioned  in an earlier blog post, for reimplementing my "Sound drawing" project to Flash I had to create a communication layer between Max/Msp and Flash. In this blog post I will report about my results and some technical information. If you want to jump directly to the technical part, please skip the part "Why am I doing this".

    Why am I doing this?

    I want to have access to more performance in general, I want to have access to more technical advanced stuff, I want an easy way for using external hardware devices, and last point, I want to collaborate with other media artists (without changin the working environment).

    Flash is a very nice for working with graphics, videos and other media based stuff. That is the total strength of Flash, but it fails in some performance issues (compared to C++) and some algorithmic libraries (compared to libraries like IanniX, Math, OpenCV, and Sphinx4). One motivation for me in this project lies to combine the advantages of these worlds. But I don't want to change the usage of these libraries. Some libraries have to be executes as an exe Application and they just perform great in C++, and not in a Flash environment (in some cases Alchemy could be a solution).

    Next point of performance is creating a scalable approach for media installation. Some media installation can't  be run by only one machine.  You need more computers, which talks to each other. For this reason, I put my focus on the Open Sound Control network protocol. As the OSC team drescribed, this protocol is made for communication between computers and media devices. It is often used in very robust environments and the documentation is very well, too. Almost every creative coding software supports the OSC communication, which is very good for collaborating with other media artists (everyone can still work in the preferred software environment).

    Some hardware can already talk OSC or it uses an communication software like TUIO, iOSC, AndroidOSC. For Midi controllers you can use graphical environments like Max/Msp or PureData. These softwares have directly access to the midi hardware and can configure the most things. Afterwards you send the midi data from Max/Msp (or PureData) to Flash via OSC. In this way Flash gets access to a new level of external devices...

    Flash talks OSC

    First I was a little bit scared, because I thought I have to dive into the nerdie byte array socket programming part in Flash. Luckily, I found information about the FlOSC project. FlOSC is Java based application, which receives the OSC messages and routing them to the Flash XML socket. There are some great tutorials available by Eric Socolofsky and Tim Poulin (part 1, part 2, part 3). After watching all of these tutorials, I was a little bit scared of the reliable performance of this approach. The Flash XML socket is nice for chat applications or some round-based multiplayer games, but for realtime data transmission I heard bad things...

    Luckily again, some time passed since FlOSC were created and Adobe provided a new binary socket API for the Flash Player. Things became even better. Since Version 2 of Adobe Air, Air supports the network UDP layer for really fast data transmission. I have not to mention that the Flash open-source is great ;-) , so I could find easily a nice library.  The tuio flash library solved almost everything I needed. I had to write my own OSCListener, which is great explained in the tuio guide and in its comments. During development I had sometimes problems with the binding of the DatagramSocket. It was obvious that the (binded) port was never closed. I had to wait until Windows shutted it down or just do it manually. Unfortunately, the UDPConnector class does not provide a close function. Therefore I added a close function by myself at the end of the class. Extending or creating a custom UDP Connector was not possible, because all members of the class are private.

    public function close():void {
    if(this.connection) {
           this.connection.close();
    }
}

    Max/MSP talks OSC

    After this minor coding everything worked fine. So I could jump to Max/MSP. Using OSC in Max/Msp is not very difficult. The documentation is pretty good and the provided example file helps a lot. I just extended the example with one function. If the max patch receives successfully a message from the Flash Client (Adobe Air app), then send a message back to the Flash client.  For the second example you have to install the fiddle plugIn (for Windows) for Max/Msp.

     

    Max/Msp and Flash in love

    I created two mini examples. Example one just demonstrates sending messages between Flash and Max/Msp. The second example is little bit more complicated and shoud give you an idea of a real life project. The max patch analyzes an audio file and sends the pitch tracking + volume tracking data to the Flash client. The flash client reads the data and draw it on the canvas. As you can see on my screen capture video above. The performance of this test application is pretty solid and robust. Now imagine instead of the tracking data we send midi data or just some image processing data. Or we do some heavy image processing on one machine and send the data to another machine, which only renders the Flash output... I guess there are many new things possible :-)

    Download Code

    The source code is available on my google project SVN or download the zip file. For the examples you must have installed Max/Msp 5, fiddle plugIn (for Windows), Flex SDK 4.5, Flash CS5 or Flash Builder 4. The code examples also requires the additional ActionScript libraries MinimalComps, MonsterDebugger, and TUIO Flash.

    Related posts:

    1. My most important Twitter Messages #9
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #6

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/16/flash-talks-to-max-msp-via-osc/feed/ 1 "     Mr. Doobs Harmony project ported to Flash AS3 http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/09/mr-doobs-harmony-project-ported-to-flash-as3/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/09/mr-doobs-harmony-project-ported-to-flash-as3/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:00:15 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1645
  • Mr. Doobs Harmony drawing APP ported to MAX / MSP
  • Harmony in Max / MSP with multiple brushes
    • ]]>

    Some time ago I ported the great Harmony drawing app by Mr. Doob to Max/Msp. This Max/Msp Version I used for my media installation "Sound drawings". During the development and testing with the musicians I was not so happy with my workflow. Furthermore I felt that the Max/Msp environment causes some certain useless obstacles for me. Especially for the visual part of my work. Now I have time to check how useful Flash can be as a renderer. The first step was to port the drawing functions to ActionScript. Here is the result:

    Get Adobe Flash player

    For drawing in full size mode please visit the html File. The code is available on my Google project site. Before using the code in your projects, please check the requirements of the GPL license Version 3 and read Mr. Doobs blog post about using his code. The API is still the same as the orginial JavaScript version. Every brush has to implement the IBrush Interface methods:

    public function init(); // for re-creating the brush (after calling destroy)
public function destroy(); //destroy the brush data and free the memory
 
////////// Drawing functions ///////////////
public function strokeStart(mouseX:int, mouseY:int):void; // set first drawing point
public function stroke(mouseX:int, mouseY:int):void; // set following drawing points
public function strokeEnd():void; // stop drawing

    Brushes are very easy to use, but for performance issues you have to consider, that the drawing commands are expensive for the computer. I already ran into some performance problems after a few seconds. For this reason, I decided to store the drawing result of each frame into a BitmapData object. The Hype Framework is using the same approach. Here you can see the most important code lines for the bitmap storing approach...

    public fundction handleEnterFrame(e:Event):void {
   // some code before
 
   // draw the stroke for one(!) frame
   brush.stroke(e.target.mouseX,e.target.mouseY);
   // save the drawing in a bitmapData Object for performance
   bmpCanvas.draw(canvas);
   // clean the canvas again for new drawings.
   canvas.graphics.clear();
 
  // some code later...
}

    Nothing more I can say. Have fun and keep on coding!

     

    Related posts:

    1. Mr. Doobs Harmony drawing APP ported to MAX / MSP
    2. Harmony in Max / MSP with multiple brushes

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/08/09/mr-doobs-harmony-project-ported-to-flash-as3/feed/ 2 "     My most important Twitter Messages #10 http://blog.derhess.de/2011/06/09/my-most-important-twitter-messages-10/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/06/09/my-most-important-twitter-messages-10/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:27:54 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1585
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #12
    • ]]>     Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from March - June 2011:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    Info Design and Visualization

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Physical Computing

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex

    Related posts:

    1. My most important Twitter Messages #5
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #12

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/06/09/my-most-important-twitter-messages-10/feed/ 0 "     My most important Twitter Messages #9 http://blog.derhess.de/2011/03/24/my-most-important-twitter-messages-9/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/03/24/my-most-important-twitter-messages-9/#comments Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:03:53 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1551
  • My most important Twitter Messages #6
  • My most important Twitter Messages #11
  • My most important Twitter Messages #4
    • ]]>     Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from January - March 2011:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    Info Design and Visualization

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Physical Computing

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex

    Related posts:

    1. My most important Twitter Messages #6
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #11
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #4

    flattr this!

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/03/24/my-most-important-twitter-messages-9/feed/ 0 "     Harmony in Max / MSP with multiple brushes http://blog.derhess.de/2011/02/23/harmony-in-max-msp-with-multiple-brushes/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/02/23/harmony-in-max-msp-with-multiple-brushes/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:47:33 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1524
  • Mr. Doobs Harmony drawing APP ported to MAX / MSP
  • Mr. Doobs Harmony project ported to Flash AS3
  • My most important Twitter Messages #9
    • ]]>     For my interactive installation "Sound Drawings" I decided to use the Harmony Drawing application. Meanwhile, the single brush version worked pretty stable with the sound analyzing. There was still one thing missing. It would be much cooler if more than one person can draw on the canvas. From the technical view it was very easy to implement. In the beginning I was a little bit scared if the realtime feedback is still good with more brushes at the same time. It was! For this reason here is the source code and my versions of testing for you.

    I prepared a screencast for getting an idea and overview how it works. The principles are exactly the same as in the first version. The only exception is the "brushID" as a new parameter. Every API call uses this syntax:

    apiFunctionName brushID parameter1 parameter2 ...

    For creating a new brush use the command "setBrush brushID brushType". Afterwards you can use the API command "setCoordinate brushID xPos yPos" for drawing programmatically. If you want to use the mouse for drawing you must use the API command "selectBrush brushID" before drawing directly on the canvas!

    All JavaScript codes and Max / MSP patches are included in the example file. For the sound drawing patch you must install the Max MSP Fiddler object, before you can try experimenting.

    Download Harmony with multible brushes

    Related posts:

    1. Mr. Doobs Harmony drawing APP ported to MAX / MSP
    2. Mr. Doobs Harmony project ported to Flash AS3
    3. My most important Twitter Messages #9

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2011/02/23/harmony-in-max-msp-with-multiple-brushes/feed/ 0 "     Book review: Generative Gestaltung http://blog.derhess.de/2011/02/14/book-review-generative-gestaltung/ http://blog.derhess.de/2011/02/14/book-review-generative-gestaltung/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:38:00 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1535
  • Book review: Form + Code (Generative Art & Design)
  • Book Review: Laws of Simplicity
  • Book review: Designing Interactions
    • ]]>

    Fangen wir mit den harten Fakten an. Das Buch ist ziemlich großformatig und hat ein schönes stabiles Hardcover. Selten so ein gutes haptisches Erlebnis mit einem Fachbuch empfunden. Auch die verschiedenen Druck- und Papiermethoden in diesem Buch sind sehr gut ausgewählt. Die Projektsammlung ist im hochqualitativen Druck eingebunden, dagegen ist der normale Inhalt des Buches mit einem einfachen Farbdruck eingebunden. Die inhaltliche Struktur des Buches, das Buchdesign, selbst, sowie die zum Buch dazugehörige Website sind perfekt und sehr gut benutzbar umgesetzt. Ein durchaus 100% gelungenes Design und Konzept. Diese Qualität schlägt sich mit einer Preisspanne von 60-75 Euro ziemlich ins Budget nieder. Doch ist jeden Euro wert! Meine Begründungen folgen in einem Kapitel-basiertem Feedback und einem Schlussfazit:

    Einführung Processing:
    Die Einführung ist kurz und knapp geschrieben und bringt die Entwicklungsumgebung, sowie Processing ziemlich gut aus der Sichtweise eines Designers auf den Punkt.

    Einführung Kapitel 1 - Farbe:
    Anfänger werden hier mit sehr einfachen Codebeispielen zum Spielen mit Farbe animiert. Besonders die Abschnitte über das Arbeiten mit Farbpaletten ist sehr
    gut umgesetzt.

    Einführung Kapitel 2 - Form
    Nach den einfachen Farbbeispielen geht es um die Erzeugung von Formen. Grundlegende Zeichnen Methoden werden erklärt (wann und wo soll das Gezeichnete
    gelöscht werden). Besonders die Verwendung von Rasterlayouts, Agenten-basiertes Zeichnen, und „Zeichnen mit komplexen Modulen“ waren sehr inspirierend und sehr gut beschrieben.

    Einführung Kapitel 3 – Typo:
    Dieses Kapitel liefert ein solides Grundwissen über das gestalterische Arbeiten und Erzeugen von Typographie. Die mitgelieferten Klassen unterstützen zudem das Experimentieren (z.B. das Auflösen der Schriftkontur)

    Einführung Kapitel 4 – Bild:
    Liefert ein solides Anfangssortiment für das Arbeiten mit Bilddaten. Den Abschnitt über „Rückkopplung von Bildausschnitten“ fand ich persönlich nicht so interessant, dafür war der Abschnitt über das Generieren von Bildcollagen umso aufschlussreicher für mich. Auch der Abschnitt „Grafik aus Pixelwerten“ wird sich sicherlich in Zukunft als hilfreich erweisen.

    Fazit zu den Einführungsteil:
    Die Einführung ist sehr gut gelungen. Die Codebeispiele lassen sich sehr gut verstehen und auch erweitern. Es ist wirklich die beste Einführung, die ich bisher in diesem Bereich gelesen habe. So macht das Programmieren Lernen auch für Designer Spaß!

    Fortgeschritten Kapitel 1 – Zufall und Rauschen:
    Zufall und Rauschen sind zwei sehr einfach zu benutzende Werkzeuge in der Programmierung. Jedoch sorgen sie genau aus diesem Grund bei Anfängern immer wieder zu Verwirrung. Dieses Kapitel gibt eine sehr ausführliche Erläuterung welche Unterschiede zwischen diesen beiden Werkzeugen bestehen. Des weiteren erfolgen Tipps in welchen Kontext Rauschen und Zufall Sinn machen können. Für mich persönlich war dieses Kapitel mit der wertvollste Teil an diesem Buch.

    Fortgeschritten Kapitel 2 – Schwingfiguren
    Diese Kapitel erläutert die Erzeugung von Formen mit Hilfe von Sinus und Kosinus Funktionen. Diese Funktionen sind ein elementarer Bestandteil der visuellen Programmierung, daher ist die Behandlung in diesem Buch sehr gut gewählt. Die Erzeugung von Lissajous-Figuren als Codebeispiel können den ein oder anderen Designer ein wenig verwirren. Jedoch mit ein bisschen Grundlagenwissen in Mathe sollte es kein weiteres Problem sein (der mathematische Hintergrund wird in diesem Kapitel wiederholt ;-)

    Fortgeschritten Kapitel 3 – Formulierte Körper
    Bisher wurden die meisten Beispiele im 2D Raum angewandt. Dieses Kapitel behandelt die Manipulation von Körpern im 3D-Raum. Von der grundlegenden 3D Darstellung geht es hin zu Erzeugung von komplexen 3D Körpern. Die Codebeispiele sind gute erklärt und auch hier lädt die hinzugefügte Mesh-Klasse zu weiteren Experimentieren ein.

    Fortgeschritten Kapitel 4 – Attraktoren:
    Das Arbeiten mit Kräften im 2D oder 3D Raum ähnelt sicherlich ein wenig dem Einstiegskapitel „Zeichnen mit Agenten“. Nur ist in diesem Kapitel der Agent starr und Kräfte von Außen wirken auf ihn ein. In diesem Kapitel werden erstmals physikalische Kräfte zum Generieren von Grafiken benutzt.  Dieses Kapitel hält sich nicht lange mit den theoretischen physikalischen Methodiken auf, sondern wendet einfache physikalische Grundgesetze im praktischen Gestaltungskontext an. Daher wieder ein durchaus gelungenes äußerst interessantes Kapitel.

    Fortgeschritten Kapitel 5 und 6 – Baumdiagramme und Datenstrukturen

    Dieses Kapitel gefällt mir mit großen Abstand am wenigsten. Die Grafiken und Codebeispiele sehen zwar schön aus, sind aber irgendwie alle Nichtssagend für die Zukunft. Hier hätte mir eine generelle Einführung oder Übersicht über Informationsvisualierung a la „A Tour through the Visualization Zoo“ besser gefallen. Erklärungen wie man Baumdiagramme, oder ein Layoutverfahren anwendet, empfand ich als zu speziell. Es kam ein wenig der Hauch eines Internet Tutorials hoch...

    Anhang und Reflexion
    Dieser Abschnitt fasst nochmal das komplette Buch in 6 Seiten zusammen. Eine schöne geschriebene Reflexion, jedoch aus theoretischer Sicht zu wenig. Die Theorie hinter generativen Gestaltung bleibt ein wenig auf Strecke.

    Endresultat:
    Ein super Buch für den praktischen anwendungsorientierten Einstieg in die „Generative Gestaltung“. Die Codebeispiele sind vorbildlich umgesetzt und erklärt. Ich hätte mir solch ein Buch sehnsüchtig in meiner Anfängerzeit gewünscht, und dass dann auch noch in der Muttersprache deutsch! Von der praktischen Seite her gibt es rein gar nichts zu bemängeln. Von theoretischer Seite weißt das Buch leider ein paar Schwächen auf. Zwar zeigt die Projektsammlung eine schöne Auswahl, doch die Beschreibungstexte lesen sich manchmal wie ein Klappentext. Der theoretische Kontext und die Idee geht dadurch in manchen Projekten ein wenig verloren. Als Referenz in einer Thesis oder Abschlussarbeit würde ich dieses Buch nicht unbedingt erwähnen. Dafür finde ich das Buch „Form + Code“ von Casey Reas und Weiteren angebrachter. Es erwähnt und verdeutlicht nochmals die theoretischen Konzepte hinter Computer-generierten Designs (Repeat,Transform, Parameterize, Visualize, Simulate, usw.). Dafür hat es seine Schwächen in der praktischen Umsetzung. Wer sich ernsthaft in diese Thematik der „Generativen Gestaltung“ einarbeiten möchte, sollte sich unbedingt beide Bücher antun!

    Related posts:

    1. Book review: Form + Code (Generative Art & Design)
    2. Book Review: Laws of Simplicity
    3. Book review: Designing Interactions

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