What is it

When run, it prints pretty spirals in your terminal.

Requirements:

Python 2 or 3, numpy, transforms3d

How to use:

git clone https://github.com/egitto/lilspirals
cd lilspirals
pip install numpy && pip install transforms3d
./main.py

Screenshots:

Tips

Pass different pre-written shapes and rotations to animate on the last line to see different patterns

Make different custom shapes; see references.

• Blending existing shapes with blendShapes
• Define new shapes with Shape constructor, passing in custom r_of and z_of functions
• Use t_i and t_f* to fit the domain of the r_of and z_of functions
  • caveat: the desired t_f is achieved by iteratively adjusting dMod, which is not perfect
    • if you have a better solution let me know

Several different rotations are predefined

• offAxis is useful for seeing what a shape actually looks like, rotating it perpendicular to its primary symmetry axis
• spinningTree is nice and pretty, showing it from its side as it rotates on its primary symmetry axis
• noRotation and headOnSpin are nice for when you want to look at radially symmetrical patterns

Further ideas (todos?):

• A better rendering system than just dumping output into a terminal
  • ncurses?
  • output to png or jpg?
  • output to animated gif? (ideally via pipe)
  • display as a legit animation that accepts input (openGL?)
    • must be cross-platform
• Translate to js, run in browser? (rendered, not via console.log)
• Make it a Jupyter notebook?
• Better documentation
• Interactivity
  • rotate or adjust theta via user input
  • rotate along all axes, while it keeps slowly changing
  • blend between different shapes smoothly
    • will need a lot of refactoring, but could be pretty cool
• More general blendShapes, that takes more shapes as input