Personal Projects

my experiments using javascript and heavily relying on D3.

Globemaker is the software I use to unwrap spherical imagery onto the plane.

• Details and results can be seen in these papers:
  • Using Turtles and Skeletons to Display the Viewable Sphere (2009)
  • Orange Peel Optimization (2021)
  • Arcs on Spheres and Snakes on Planes (pending)
• The original C# code is in the globemaker directory.
• I recommend the latest JavaScript code in the globemaker_js directory. Read the README there for more details.

Some initial experiments to create a meandering worm on a sphere which is simultaneously unwrapped onto the plane. See the README there for more details

to use this tool to make TSP Art:

1. Download the d3 pages directory
2. open tsp_xfrmer.html in your browser.
3. Make TSP Art:
   • click 'Choose file' button. Select a 1280x720 image. black silhouette on white works best.
   • set number of points (non-powers of 2 won't work, anything above 2048 might be sllllow)
   • click target to place random cities
   • click stipple to perform Secord's Weighted Voronoi stippling algorithm.
   • click TSP to 'solve' the TSP (not guaranteed to be optimal)
4. Save TSP art as a graphic image.
   • Click on the 'Appearance' link to get a new set of controls to change the colours
     • there are three colours: a start colour, an in-between colour and an end colour; just type in the name of the colour.
     • The numbers inbetween the colours are the indices of the TSP tour where the colours change.
   • You can use this 'bookmarklet' to save the image as an svg file.
   • Or just use your computer's print screen capabilities.
5. Animate from one TSP art to another:
   • Do step 3 for your starting image.
   • Click on 'smooth' to turn it into an elipse.
   • Do step 3 for your final image.
   • Click on smooth to turn it into an elipse.
   • Click on the 'Animation' link.
   • Click on the 'Tighten' button, wait for the image to stop changing.
   • Click on the '>>' button to reduce the step size to 1, wait for the image to stop chaning.
   • Click 'stop'.
6. Watch your animation.
   • Click 'Animate' to watch your animation.
   • You can change the speed.
   • If you want to save it, look for a screenscraping program.
     • On linux I use 'SimpleScreenRecorder'.
     • On windows I use Icecream's Screen-Recorder