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Particle Systems and Webcams
June 05, 2011
After playing around with Processing a bit I started investigating particle systems to simulate rope and cloth. I also started thinking up with other useful things that particle systems can do. In this sketch I utilize a streaming webcam to create particles. The sketch looks for changes in the webcam, indicating movement, and creates new particles at the location of these changes. Each new particle has an initial random velocity and is then subject to gravity. The particle’s color reflects the underlying video stream. Eventually each new particle fades out.
Download the sketch: ParticleVideo.zip
When running the sketch you will have to adjust the maxSize parameter of the particle system to match your computer horsepower, too many particles and the computer can’t keep up. Also you can adjust the reduction parameter, this down-samples the video capture so there is not as much data to process.
You will need the Processing IDE to run the sketch.