February 14, 2009
Livecode Procedurally Generated 3D Forms with oGFx
oGFx (or, more fully, E15:oGFx) is a new system by Kyle Buza and Luis Blackaller that allows a programmer to procedurally generate 2D animations which are continually extruded into 3D forms – and to made changes to code as it is running and generating graphics. You can write (or modify) simple Python programs to get going in oGFx, within a few minutes. The system was just released on 1234567890 (Unix Epoch Time). oGFx is deeply beautiful, in that it allows for many sorts of visually compelling work, relates 2D to 3D graphics in a fascinating way, and allows for a better understanding of how computation and programming can be aesthetic. The system was developed in the MIT Physical Language Workshop which was run by John Maeda from 2006-2008. I’m glad to have been on Luis’s committee as he worked on the closely related project MyStudio, and to have gotten to talk with him about oGFx and see it in action as it developed.
If you check out the demo on the site and the images available on Flickr, you’re likely to say “oMGFx!” If you have an Intel Mac, I definitely encourage any programmers (even those who aren’t graphics-intensive) to download this first alpha version of the system and give it a try.