process
Much of my work involves creating simulations
which often turn into tricky mathematical modeling problems.
For example, a page from my journal dated 17 Dec 2000 shows
my thoughts as I worked out the butterfly model for the first
time.
Later I realized that the butterflies looked better if I made
the two wing polygons intersect a little bit. The next image
shows a sketch of the revised wing model and notes the vertex
functions. (Also seen on this page are sketches from La Sagrada
Familia. I was living in Barcelona at the time and apparently
I had gone there that day; my journals are often intertwined
in this fashion.)
Often enormous effort will go for naught. Below shows work on
a parametric model of a tree-like branch. The idea was abandoned
after a few days of work when I realized that the time it would
take relative to its interest level. This is the fate of 80%
of my ideas.
One of the most complicated parts of the system is the calibration
which no one but me ever sees. Figure 4 shows some of the original
design for how the calibrator would function. Most of this is
a diagram for a state machine. I often model computer algorithms
in a storyboard fashion such as this.
Figure 5 shows the first diagram which illustrated the technical
workings. I had already built the system by the time I drew
this but had not yet installed it formally. When I drew it out
carefully I realized that it would be better to project from
above rather than from waist level (as I had drawn) because
it would allow people to pass behind one participant without
disturbing them. A quick after-thought sketch in the corner
captures my realization as well as the fact that I would have
to pay for this with a keystone effect.
Of course, ultimately all of my artistic ideas must be realized
in code which must be debugged. Little scraps of paper litter
my desktop with typical programmer hieroglyphics. Figure 6 appears
to be debugging notes regarding address of a corrupt linked
list written on the corner of a doctor's prescription.
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