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Processsing is an open source computer programcreated by Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT. It is Javabased, and has been used to introduce programmingto designers and people who do not usually pro-gram. It is also a powerful program used in graphicsand data-visualizations, a concept where statisticsare often referred to by size of icons on screen. Thisis not the only way processing is used though. BenFry, one of its creators, uses processing mainly todemonstrate genetics visualizations. (If you have

a half an hour, you can watch his talk at UX Weekhere). Casey Reas, by contrast, uses processing forgraphics.

Matthew Love, a student at WKU, got a chance tolearn under Casey Reas at the Anderson Ranch inColorado this past summer. Matt had been talkingabout it in design class most of the semester, and I

was almost encouraged to go. Matt is a student ofgraphic design, who is also going for a Math minor.

His interest is also in data visualizations, but whenI asked him about programming, he said he didnt want to concentrate on code, but ratheron design. Instead, he uses code to achieve his objectives.

As Matt explained, processing gives the user an ability to organize data from music, video,or statistics, or just about any other data set, and present it as visually meaningful. It allowscreation of drawing applications from coordinates of mouse-x and mouse y, clicks, and un-clicks, like most other languages. But it seems easier, and like ash is primarily focused on

Matthew

Love onProcessing

andSummerworkshop

with its

founder

Casey Reasby Will Kotheimer

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its interactive quality.

I see processing as the obvious door to getinto the programming mindset, especially

when dealing with data. Matthew said. Mattgave a run down of his ve-day experienceat the Anderson ranch. Day 1 began with adrawing program, and Day 2 focused on userinput. From there the course diverged intoprojects where the students made their own

visions, and Casey guided them navi-gating processings immense libraries.

The students created things calledsketches that were really small pro-grams that did a certain functions.Over the course of ve days Matt com-plied around 25 of them. . . .He kind of justguided us the rst few days, in his innite

wisdom, and build upon what we had learned

and really go in any sort of direction we hadwanted to go. Since I knew what processingcould do and I had a good idea and had been

working on it myself he helped me gettinginto 3-d and that sort of thing, or video feeds,modifying those.

Some of Matts video feeds and mouse-con-trolled events programs can be seen here. Itshard to represent them and do them justice

without video, because most of them are cre-ated in real time. But still its easier to show apicture than explain this in some cases.

A progam called 23 was a visualization in-

volving a video feed.. He pointed his webcamat us and then was able to manipulate the way

we looked by changing variables in the pro-gram. I think its ve different lters or typesof processes that is used to interpret the we-bcam. Its drawing degrees of a circle for the

brightness values, he said, areas thatare lighter are a quarter of a circle. Andareas that are darker are whole circles

which gives it more pigment.

He pointed out to me, look, if you staystill, the background is moving morethan we are. Theres a cosine function

drawing a circle with each of those, but onlythe points that are lighter, like the sky, so it

makes sort of a dizzying effect. But when Iprodded him further about the video feedhe was quick to add, Im not going to take

I see processing as the obvious doorto get into the programming mind-set, especially when dealing withdata.

Video Feed program

2-D drawing program

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credit for that, thats from their libraries.

Processing shares many aspects of othercomputer programs, including a way to

port to the internet (see my article onJoshua Harris, who also uses processing),and libraries. In this respect, one of thethings a programmer brings to process-ing is his original idea. One of Mattsmore interesting ideas was adapted froma Steve Reich piece where two drumsbeat the same rhythm, but one went 99.9beats per minute while the other went100 beats per minute. Matt adapted thisto a piece of visual data where circles

transversed a screen, one faster than the

other about that same ratio in clock wiseand counter clockwise motion, and whenthey crossed they created a line from thecenter to that point; as he explains:

Its a generative piece, so its giving eachone a value each time the circles goaround, and thats the rate of increase;and whenever these two meet up, it drawsa line from the center to the outside.

What its doing is its using a proximityvalue. When the proximity is less thanone, then it uses one of the coordinates.This was day three, and this is when Iknew that I was really happy I had come.

Like many who are involved in Pro-cessing at this stage, Matt doesntknow what hell do with it yet, buthe is convinced at its effectiveness.Two of the people there at AndersonRanch this summer were part of a de-sign rm based out of Denver. Thosepeople found themselves at a designrm, but I guess theres always com-mercial applications of it, including

research, nding the relationship betweendata.

While he is mainly about the arts andgraphics side of it, hes sees tremendouspotential in either side. I really like the

art side and I really like the applicableside.

. . .I really like the art side and I re-ally like the applicable side.

Square height based on light and dark values

Steve Reich inspired piece (see at-

tached PDFs)

Will Kotheimer is majoring in Advertisingand Computer Science at WKU. Contacthim at wkotheimer@gmail.com