Audio Landscape

Audio Landscape is an interesting music visualizer created with HTML5 Audio and WebGL that draws a literal 3D-rendered landscape based on the MP3 song that the user provides. A first-person flight simulator-like arial view is shown, and as the user flies overhead, he or she can see (depending on the landscape chosen) mountains, volcanoes, or iceberg-like objects being constructed in the distance and in sync with music. There are lots of music visualizers (I remember them being quite popular in the 90s) that I’m sure this was partly inspired from, but pairing music with a natural 3D landscape that dynamically takes shape with music is a novel combination that I find interesting. I tend to prefer having a scrubber to tell me where I am in an audio track that’s playing, but I think the creator intentionally left such a feature out in this project to provide some level of mystery or surprise as to what type of landscape will be created next.

Blooms: Strobe-Animated Sculptures

John Edmark, a lecturer in Stanford’s art department, created 3-D printed sculptures using the Fibonacci sequence. He then spun them quickly and synchronized their rotation speed with a rapid shutter speed (1/4000 sec) to create a very smooth stop-motion animation. The results are mind-blowingly mesmerizing, as the sculptures spin and bloom to life. I love the seamless, beautiful illusion of motion with these 3D prints and lighting tricks; they have a hypnotic effect that had me watching for minutes. The same effect can apparently be achieved by using a strobe light so that one flash occurs every time the sculpture turns at the golden angle: 137.5 degrees. According to Edmark, the sculptures are inspired by the golden spiral, which is found in nature — sunflowers, pine cones, as well as other forms; he discusses the math behind it in an Instructables post.