Random Art Generator

This project makes randomly generated .png images. It creates an expression for each color channel, which it then runs with the x and y coordinates of each image pixel to determine the pixel's final color.

What's an expression?

I'm super-glad you asked! It takes an x and y value and returns a new value between -1.0 and 1.0. It nests functions to create unexpected values.

This image was created with the following expression:

sin(pi * sin(pi * sin(pi * (sin(pi * sin(pi * sin(pi * sin(pi *
    cos(pi * y))))) * cos(pi * sin(pi * cos(pi *
    avg(sin(pi * y), (x * x)))))))))

You can look at random_art.py and edit it in order to change the expression generation process.

How to run this

This project uses pipenv. To use it, download the project and run pipenv install.

Run create_art.py (using pipenv run or after you run pipenv shell). create_art.py takes several command-line parameters you may want to use.

• --seed SEED sets the random seed to a particular number. This is great for being able to generate the same image more than once.

• -s SIZE or --size SIZE sets the size of the image. SIZE is {width}x{height}, like 2560x1600.

• -n NUM or --number NUM sets how many images to create. NUM is 1 by default.

• --gray, --rgb, and --cmyk set whether the image is in grayscale or generated using RGB or CMYK values. RGB is the default.

Credit

Modified from a "nifty assignment" from the annual SIGCSE meeting.