Ticker, a kinetic playground.
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:56 am
Hello Everyone,
This forum will support the program code named "Ticker". I began to develop Ticker in June, 2020 as a research project to see if I
could possibly develop a program to allow one to design kinetic art without having to know CAD/CAM , or for the user to have to
understand constraint systems , Blender, node trees, or the math and logic behind making physical simulations.
Release date is still uncertain and I have a few hurdles yet to jump, but at close to midnight last night I was finally able to
create a running "David C Roy" type of rotary ratchet. To be fair, his uses a better method where the odd shape seen in the video below
of the pawl is replaced with a simple elongation of the shaft hole, but Ticker is not yet capable of sliding its main shaft in a hole designed
by the user. It IS capable of importing a shape you draw and changing it into a shaft driven physical object where gravity, constraints to
other objects and such are all automatically applied. So I re-designed the pawl to a shape that allows it to retract on lock, so the vanes can spin
freely until they return to retrigger the rotation.
For all those that have wondered how sculptures like the BAT are supposed to function, this is the method. (I haven't weighted the vane
as its only a simple rod, but normal vanes will spin several times before retriggering by going backwards on final spin.) . I cant count
the number of letters I've received asking how a David C Roy sculpture rotates, so I figured it was my test goal of the project. In a Roy type
of ratchet, the video's tend to hide the elongated shaft hole on the pawl with a large round knob on the shaft. It drives people nuts
as it makes it hard to understand what's happening. Ticker is meant to allow people to discover such things on their own, to play
around with motion to see what would look cool on a wall.
When done I hope it becomes something that in conjunction with Vexx allows one to draw a shape and bring it to life in
complex ways , often times non-intuitively, to allow ones imagination to take easier flight. The program allows for Wall based
OR table based kinetic art design. Vanes and such can be drawn in Ticker and imported quickly as an asset to be displayed
properly at high frame rate so one can see what Vanes and mechanisms should look like in reality, and how they may behave.
Ticker is Gearotic's simulator on steroids. The complexity involved for me is in hiding the actual complexity from the user.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icwbRredj_4
I know I haven't posted much lately, Ticker became something of an obsession over the pandemic, but I can finally see
some light at the end of the development tunnel. I look forward to release, and will support the program here in this
forum. Hope everyone's summer is winding down smoothly, I just suffered through a hurricane so I sympathize with all
of you who have faced environmental challenges this year.
Hopefully soon,
Art
This forum will support the program code named "Ticker". I began to develop Ticker in June, 2020 as a research project to see if I
could possibly develop a program to allow one to design kinetic art without having to know CAD/CAM , or for the user to have to
understand constraint systems , Blender, node trees, or the math and logic behind making physical simulations.
Release date is still uncertain and I have a few hurdles yet to jump, but at close to midnight last night I was finally able to
create a running "David C Roy" type of rotary ratchet. To be fair, his uses a better method where the odd shape seen in the video below
of the pawl is replaced with a simple elongation of the shaft hole, but Ticker is not yet capable of sliding its main shaft in a hole designed
by the user. It IS capable of importing a shape you draw and changing it into a shaft driven physical object where gravity, constraints to
other objects and such are all automatically applied. So I re-designed the pawl to a shape that allows it to retract on lock, so the vanes can spin
freely until they return to retrigger the rotation.
For all those that have wondered how sculptures like the BAT are supposed to function, this is the method. (I haven't weighted the vane
as its only a simple rod, but normal vanes will spin several times before retriggering by going backwards on final spin.) . I cant count
the number of letters I've received asking how a David C Roy sculpture rotates, so I figured it was my test goal of the project. In a Roy type
of ratchet, the video's tend to hide the elongated shaft hole on the pawl with a large round knob on the shaft. It drives people nuts
as it makes it hard to understand what's happening. Ticker is meant to allow people to discover such things on their own, to play
around with motion to see what would look cool on a wall.
When done I hope it becomes something that in conjunction with Vexx allows one to draw a shape and bring it to life in
complex ways , often times non-intuitively, to allow ones imagination to take easier flight. The program allows for Wall based
OR table based kinetic art design. Vanes and such can be drawn in Ticker and imported quickly as an asset to be displayed
properly at high frame rate so one can see what Vanes and mechanisms should look like in reality, and how they may behave.
Ticker is Gearotic's simulator on steroids. The complexity involved for me is in hiding the actual complexity from the user.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icwbRredj_4
I know I haven't posted much lately, Ticker became something of an obsession over the pandemic, but I can finally see
some light at the end of the development tunnel. I look forward to release, and will support the program here in this
forum. Hope everyone's summer is winding down smoothly, I just suffered through a hurricane so I sympathize with all
of you who have faced environmental challenges this year.
Hopefully soon,
Art
