The new visual identity of my work place (and the re-ignition of an old lava lamp) made me think of the good old metaballs from the Amiga demo-scene of yonder and how it has been a while since I have implemented them from scratch. This time I wanted to play around with Python and numpy to see what that could bring. But first, what are metaballs? It's, for example, this: Wikipedia defines them as: In computer graphics, metaballs are organic-looking n-dimensional isosurfaces, characterised by their ability to meld together when in close proximity to create single, contiguous objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaballs As cool as multidimensional metaballs are, we'll stick to 2D ones in this post. The algorithm The algorithm behind them is quite straightforward -- in their simplest form. Basically for each pixel in each frame, or buffer, you add up the influence of each metaball in the simulation and then cut off below a certain threshold and normalize what’s left. The...
A series of notes to myself.