Tag: Processing

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Processing: How to Hide Messages in Images

Can you spot the difference?

Alright, take a look at the two versions of Starry Night above. They look the same, right?

WRONG.

There’s a Shel Silverstein poem in one of them. It’s chilling out in the different red values of the pixels in the upper left hand corner on the second Starry Night. I love this method of hiding messages.

If you convert letters into numbers, you can use those to make pixel color changes that are pretty darn subtle. Then when you send your encoded image to anyone with the original, they can use Processing to pull the message out.

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Six Programs for Starving Artists

A Program List

Like most freelancers out there, I don’t have spare cash for subscription fees. Approximately 99.9% of my disposable income goes toward coffee, booze, and books.  Side-note: If you haven’t read Stiff by Mary Roach, you should. Informative but also surprisingly lighthearted.

Back to the point. Graphic design, photo editing, 3D modeling, GIS packages—the serious stuff can swallow your wallet whole. Luckily, the internet is a magical place, full of open-source alternatives to help level the playing field. Here’s my top picks.

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Processing: How to Randomize Textures

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Scenes with custom textures always seem to turn out better for me, but they’re hellish to make. I’ve spent hours in GIMP hand-drawing patterns, carefully testing out layers to get  effects. It’s a hassle.

However, I’m learning to automate more of that sort of thing with Processing. What’s really nice about that is you can get a texture that changes subtly every time you run the script if you use the Random function to assign coordinates, weights, and transparency values.

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Processing: How to Add CSV Data to Pretty Maps

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The internet has a shit-ton of map data. I didn’t realize it until I started skimming through HTML on sites like Craigslist and Yelp. Yes, by the way, I am that weirdo who sits in coffee shops on Saturday mornings muttering at tags I don’t understand.

The point is, I want to be able to play with that data in Processing. The first step is just getting that information into the sketch and mapping it properly. That’s what I’m doing today… I acknowledge that I get fixated on projects with very few practical applications. It’s possible I need to get out more.

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