Hi everyone. I’d like to start this thread for discussion of LaserBoy; what is it, how does one use it, what can one do with it, etc…
So I’ll start things off with some 3D color vector porn.
This was made using LaserBoy to create a single frame (the 2D colored grid). This was turned into an animation using the LaserBoy frame effect tranz. The result of that was rotated and slightly zoomed out and a folder full of numbered bitmap files was exported (each frame). These bitmap frames were then compiled into a video using ffmpeg.
Here’s one showing the concept of the 3D centroid. There is an irregular shaped mass of vertices inside the cube of 3D short integer space in rotation. The outside surfaces of the cube show the convex polygon that contains all the vertices from each cardinal view. The cross on each cube face shows the calculated 2D centroid of that view. Each view provides 2 coordinates for the 2D centroids. The 3D centroid is calculated based on the weighted average of the coordinate pairs from each side based on the area of the polygon.
You can import a wave recording of whatever you would like to see on a scope screen and LaserBoy can render it to your computer screen and to a directory full of bitmaps that can be compiled into a video with ffmpeg.
Just make a recording of your source into a 16-bit wave and save it in the folder /LaserBoy/wav/unformatted/. If all you have is X and Y, LaserBoy will render it in white on black. There are many ways to give it color once in LaserBoy. But LaserBoy can also read 24-bit color if you have a 6 channel wave with XYRGBI, where I is ignored.
[single frames]
math rhodonea
math epicycloid
math epitrochoid
math hypocycloid
math hypotrochoid
math lissajou
math pendulum
math pendulum_sum
math pendulum_xy
math pendulum_xyz
math harmonograph
math harmonograph_3D
math amplitude_mod
math amplitude_mod_xy
math amplitude_mod_xyz
math frequency_mod
math frequency_mod_xy
math frequency_mod_xyz
[animated frame sets]
math rhodoneas
math epicycloids
math epitrochoids
math hypocycloids
math hypotrochoids
math lissajous
math pendulums
math pendulums_sum
math pendulums_xy
math pendulums_xyz
math harmonographs
math harmonographs_3D
math amplitude_mods
math amplitude_mods_xy
math amplitude_mods_xyz
math frequency_mods
math frequency_mods_xy
math frequency_mods_xyz
Each of these take parameters in a specific order from text and render into LaserBoy frames.
All of the math is done with double float and scaled to 100% of signed short int space.
Animations are written as two sets of identical single forms.
LaserBoy does linear interpolation to create all the frames in between.
See:
./LaserBoy/txt/math.txt
To open this file
i to import
4 for txt
math.txt
1 to replace frame set
Each form is a solid color.
For better effect,
g frame to palette trans
up arrow 5 taps to the palette of pure hues.
C (capital) to set all frames to use this palette
^ (shift 6) to span the palette through the vertices of all frames
[Esc] back to main and hit
` ( or ~) to play the frame set
In this release I finally figured out how to compile and link with SDL2!
It still compiles and links with SDL 1.2.15 as well.
And it compiles in 64-bit Windows!
This distribution comes with LaserBoy.exe compiled with SDL 1.2.15 in Win32 compatible with XP and probably below AND LaserBoy64.exe compiled with SDL2 in Win64.
Since it is now possible to compile with SDL2, it should make in MacOSX.
I have to give a shout out to the people who put together MSYS2. It is really nice! If you want the GCC compiler on a Windows machine this is the way to go.