User:Tom

Project (WORK IN PROGRESS)

I ran into a couple of Gifs that visualised how certain sorting algorithms worked. Normally I don’t understand algorithms, but these visualisations made it so easy and insightful to understand what is going on. Besides that I think it’s cool to see an algorithm at work like this, I also think it has some artistic value. You could call it glitch art (glitch art:——————)

It is a code creating a new kind of image by rearranging the original. This results in an image made anonymous. Or maybe more like a vague memory, where everything is still there but over time you start to forget what it looks like. This creates a new memory, a distorted version of the original.

What is Pixel Sorting?

Pixel Sorting is done with a program called Processing. It takes the pixels in a digital image and places them into a semblance of order. Pixel sorting was made popular by an artist of the name Kim Asendorf. He began sorting by developing a code in Processing.

Examples from artists/reddit

Experiment

CODE!

This is a modified version of the code written bij Kim Asendorf. It is written in Processing language, and requires a folder called ‘data’ in the same location as the .pde processing file.

PImage img; PImage sorted; int index = 0;

void setup() {

 size(800, 400);

 img = loadImage("afbeelding.jpg");
 sorted = createImage(img.width, img.height, RGB);
 sorted = img.get();

}

void draw() {

 println(frameRate);

 sorted.loadPixels();

 // Selection sort!
 for (int y = 0; y < sorted.height; y++) {

   float record = -1;
   int selectedPixel = index;

   for (int x = index; x < sorted.width; x++) {
     int loc = y * sorted.width + x;
     color pix = sorted.pixels[loc];
     float b = brightness(pix);
     if (b > record) {
       selectedPixel = loc;
       record = b;
     }
   }
   // Swap selectedPixel with i
   color temp = sorted.pixels[y * sorted.width + index];
   sorted.pixels[y * sorted.width + index] = sorted.pixels[selectedPixel];
   sorted.pixels[selectedPixel] = temp;
 }
 if (index < sorted.width -1) {
   index++;
 } else {
   save("sorted.jpg");
   frameRate(0);
 }

 sorted.updatePixels();

 background(0);
 image(img, 0, 0);
 image(sorted, 400, 0);

}

The code results in a pixel sorting visualisation:

GIF MAKEN