New Background
I subscribe to a Yahoo group called Polytopia, which deals with geometry and art. I love this subject, and this group has some members who can rattle off stuff that’s WAY over my head, but underlying all the technical talk, there is opportunity to create beautiful things.
This is the description of the group taken from their main page:
Searching all Dimensions of the Cosmos for signs of Intelligence in the form of…
Mathematical Models, Geometry, Geometric Art, Symmetry and Proportion, The Golden Ratio, Polyhedra and Polyhedron Models, Platonic and Archimedean Solids, Tiling, Tesselation and Patterns, Geometry in Islamic Art, Fractals and Chaos, Star Polygons, Compass and Rule Constructions, Crystalography and Quasicrystals, Geometry in Nature, Phylotaxis, Mathematical Astonomy, Space-Time Geometry, Fibonacci Numbers, Logarithmic and Gnomonic Spirals, Hyperbolic and Spherical Geometry, Trigonometry, Polytopes, The Fourth Dimension, Polychora, Hypercube, Topology, Knot Theory, Celtic Knots, Minimal and Ruled Surfaces, String Art, Curve Stitching, Geometry Modeling Kits and Toys, Zome, Spirograph, Harmonograph, Synergetics, Geodesic Domes, Oct-Tet Truss, Space Frames, Buckyballs and Fullerenes, Nanotubes, Crop Circles, Trivium and Quadrivium, Sacred Geometry, Labrynth, Mandala, Yantra, Kolam, Vedic Mathematics, Pythagoras, Tetractys, Architecture , Harmonics, etc.
One member who goes by the username “anisohedral”, writes Java applets that allow the user to construct tilings. This is how I made my new background. I’m going to put together a tutorial one of these days to show how to create seamless backgrounds. I find it fun to create a small pattern that tiles and makes it difficult to see where the repeat occurs. (It’s just such a shame that this doesn’t feed the bulldog, and in fact takes my time away from things that DO.)
