Ollin

FiftyPoints

Wall Drawing 118, carried out over and over. The sketch is the drafter. It places the fifty points, keeping the farthest of a handful of throws for each, so that "at random" and "evenly distributed" both hold. Then it connects them one line at a time at a drafter's pace, holds the finished wall, paints it over, and starts the next one. points is the number in the instruction, pace how many lines a second get drawn, and hold how long a finished wall stays up. firstWall picks which drawing comes first, and a press moves on to the next wall. An original Ollin interpretation written from the published instruction. There is no code to port, since the work is the instruction.

Run
swift run --package-path Examples Example-Recreations-SolLeWitt-FiftyPoints
Source
Examples/Recreations/SolLeWitt/FiftyPoints/Sketch.swift
//  Recreation after Sol LeWitt - "Wall Drawing 118" (1971), the instruction
//  that places fifty points at random on a wall and connects every one of them
//  to every other with a straight line. A homage, not a reproduction, and not
//  affiliated with or endorsed by the artist or his estate.
//  https://www.artic.edu/artworks/196148/wall-drawing-118-50-randomly-placed-points-connected-by-straight-lines
//
//  An original Ollin interpretation written from the published instruction.
//  Nothing was ported: a LeWitt wall drawing is a written instruction that a
//  drafter carries out, and this sketch is one more drafter carrying it out.

import Ollin

/// "Wall Drawing 118" (Sol LeWitt, 1971). The whole work is three sentences:
/// "On a wall surface, any continuous stretch of wall, using a hard pencil,
/// place fifty points at random. The points should be evenly distributed over
/// the area of the wall. All of the points should be connected by straight
/// lines."
///
/// LeWitt did not draw his wall drawings. He wrote them, and other people drew
/// them, each time on a new wall, so every installation of the same work is a
/// different drawing. The instruction is the work, the way a score is the
/// piece. That makes this sketch the drafter rather than the picture. It
/// places the fifty points and connects them one line at a time at a
/// drafter's pace. It holds the finished wall for a while, then paints the
/// wall over and starts again, and the next drawing is not the last one.
///
/// Two things in the sentence do the work. "At random" and "evenly
/// distributed" pull against each other, since plain chance clumps. So the
/// drafter here throws a handful of candidate spots for every point and keeps
/// the one farthest from the points already placed. And "all of the points"
/// is a count: fifty points make 1,225 lines, and a wall this dense is what a
/// small rule looks like when it is followed all the way.
///
/// Try it: `points` is the number in the instruction, `pace` how many lines a
/// second the drafter draws, and `hold` how long the finished wall stays up
/// before the next one starts. `firstWall` picks the first drawing, and every
/// wall after it is the next one in line. A press moves on to the next wall.
/// The lines export as strokes, so `--export-svg` with a frame after the
/// drawing is done gives all 1,225 of them back.
@main
final class FiftyPoints: Sketch {
    @Param(3 ... 120, icon: "circle.grid.3x3") var points = 50
    @Param(10 ... 600, icon: "pencil") var pace = 90.0
    @Param(0 ... 30, icon: "clock") var hold = 6.0
    @Param(1 ... 999, icon: "dice") var firstWall = 1

    /// Seconds between one point being placed and the next.
    private let placingStep = 0.05
    /// How many spots the drafter weighs before placing each point.
    private let candidates = 24

    /// The wall the cached points belong to, so a new wall rolls new points
    /// once rather than every frame.
    private var wall = Int.min
    private var placed: [Vector2] = []
    /// Every pair of points, in the order the drafter connects them: the first
    /// point to all the others, then the second to all the ones after it.
    private var pairs: [(Int, Int)] = []
    private var skipped = 0

    override func mousePressed() {
        skipped += 1
    }

    override func draw() {
        background(Color(hex: 0xF3F1EC))

        let count = max(3, points)
        let lineCount = count * (count - 1) / 2
        let placing = Double(count) * placingStep
        let drawing = Double(lineCount) / pace
        let cycle = placing + drawing + hold
        let lap = Int(time / cycle)
        let phase = time - Double(lap) * cycle
        let current = firstWall + skipped + lap
        if current != wall || placed.count != count {
            prepare(wall: current, count: count)
        }

        // A hard pencil: thin, gray, and a little darker where lines cross.
        noFill()
        stroke(Color(white: 0.28, alpha: 0.55))
        strokeWeight(1)
        strokeCap(.butt)

        let progress = max(0, (phase - placing) * pace)
        let whole = min(lineCount, Int(progress))
        for k in 0 ..< whole {
            let (i, j) = pairs[k]
            drawLine(placed[i], placed[j])
        }
        // The line under the pencil right now, as far as it has got.
        if whole < lineCount {
            let (i, j) = pairs[whole]
            let fraction = progress - Double(whole)
            if fraction > 0 {
                drawLine(placed[i], Vector2.lerp(placed[i], placed[j], fraction))
            }
        }

        noStroke()
        fill(Color(white: 0.15))
        let shown = phase < placing ? min(count, Int(phase / placingStep) + 1) : count
        for point in placed.prefix(shown) {
            drawCircle(center: point, radius: 3)
        }
    }

    /// Places the points for one wall. Each one is the farthest of a handful of
    /// random spots from everything placed before it, which is what "at
    /// random" and "evenly distributed" come to when both have to hold.
    private func prepare(wall: Int, count: Int) {
        self.wall = wall
        randomSeed(wall)
        let room = Rectangle(center: center, width: width * 0.88, height: height * 0.88)
        placed = []
        placed.reserveCapacity(count)
        for _ in 0 ..< count {
            var best = randomVector(in: room)
            var bestClearance = -1.0
            for _ in 0 ..< candidates {
                let candidate = randomVector(in: room)
                let clearance = placed.map { $0.distance(to: candidate) }.min() ?? .infinity
                if clearance > bestClearance {
                    best = candidate
                    bestClearance = clearance
                }
            }
            placed.append(best)
        }
        pairs = []
        pairs.reserveCapacity(count * (count - 1) / 2)
        for i in 0 ..< count {
            for j in (i + 1) ..< count {
                pairs.append((i, j))
            }
        }
    }
}

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