Fun With Flash & Math ... the Trice 'O Graph

So, I got a great book last christmas (yes, that was months ago), its called Flash Math Creativity. If you like geometric shapes and patterns, then this book is definitley for you. The book got me thinking... one of my favorite experiments in the book was an animation called "Trails" by Glen Rhodes. Basically, an object in the movie clip moves around and clones itself over and over, thus creating a neat trailing effect.

I loved the ideas that this presented, and I started playing around with it. I extended his idea, and created a neat little app that I like to refer as the Trice 'O Graph because it reminds me of those old SpriroGraph toys. Basically, it is just a square that moves in a circular path around the screen. You can adjust its color, cycle its color, rotate it, resize it, change the trail length, offset the center from the axis of rotation, simulate 3 dimensional depth, etc... Really, you should try it out for yourself. Be forewarned, It is extremely addictive.

To get you started:

• The combo box in the top left control the automatic color cycling.


• The sliders in the bottom left control the offest from the center of rotation. (the button in between the two sliders resets it to the default position)


• The sliders in the top right control the movement and trail dynamics.


• The sliders in the bottom right control the color levels for the RGB channels, and the tint percentage. The checkboxes above each color channel slider determine whether or not that color gets cycled (checked == yes).

Launch the Trice 'O Graph.

Here are a few screenshots of what it can do...