We had an amazing presentation today at the iOS developers workshop, by Louie and Bob. They are in the process of building a tool that works with pattern blocks and allows you to build complex tilings and impressive art. The process starts out with simple shapes that you can combine by joining edges. The blocks you’re joining together reorient and rescale dynamically to fit together seamlessly. These can be saved as patterns themselves. They have a clever way of joining a block to itself (by tapping on two edges) that reproduces the original block, reorients and joins them. And there’s a way to do that repetitively in a circle or in a line to create amazingly complex patterns.
This is an example of the sort of things that happen when this tool is in the hands of an artist friend of theirs.
They are looking for some help with making the graphics more efficient, creating a more intuitive user interface, and figuring out who the app will most appeal to. If you’re interested in helping, contact the Cocoa Conspiracy mailing list.
Other topics we discussed while looking at this new app were, Penrose tiles, Achimedian tiling, Islamic tiling patterns, finding four fold symmetries, teaching children about mathematics, pattern tiling as an aid for designers, and how to quickly teach app users how to use a complex app. Always a fascinating group!