Making Bitmap Art with Flash CS3 and WikiPedia

Today I felt like a real bitmap artist (cool!) .
Yeah, I was making some real artwork using Flash and WikiPedia. I was reading through an article about Bresenham’s line algorithm. That is an algorithm that determines which points in an n-dimensional raster should be plotted in order to form a close approximation to a straight line between two given points. Through a minor expansion, the original algorithm for lines can also be used to draw circles. Also this can be done with simple arithmetic operations.
That’s what I have done to dynamically draw some artwork in BitmapData objects. You can see at the bottom of this post the foundation of the code so you can easily extend the code to make your own artwork. I played a bit with it in combination with Adobe Kuler (for good color combinations) and let the algorithm run for 500 cycles, wich is also part of the artwork.

Here are actually 3 results using Kuler for color combinations:

ARTWORK 1 : WATERMELON

ARTWORK 2 : CYTRUS

ARTWORK 3 : ADDEND

If you want to have a look at the foundation of the code, here it is …:

// inpiration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham’s_line_algorithm

var myBitmap:Bitmap = new Bitmap();
var myImage:BitmapData = new BitmapData(400,400,true,0xFFFFFFFF);
myBitmap.filters = [new BlurFilter(4, 2, BitmapFilterQuality.HIGH)];
var plotColorArray:Array = [0xFF000000,0xFF333333,0xFFFF358B,0xFF01B0F0,0xFFAEEE00]
var plotColor:uint = 0xFFFFFFFF;
myBitmap.bitmapData = myImage;
addChild(myBitmap);

var x0:int = stage.stageWidth/2;
var y0:int = stage.stageHeight/2;
var radius:int = 1;

var timer:Timer = new Timer(20,500);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER,drawCircle);
timer.start();

function drawCircle(evt:TimerEvent) {

if (radius>stage.stageWidth/4) {
radius =Math.random()*(stage.stageWidth/2);
plotColor = plotColorArray[Math.floor(Math.random()*5+1)]
}
var f : int = 1-radius;
var ddF_x :int= 0;
var ddF_y:int = -(Math.random()*1+1)*radius;
var x:int =0;
var y:int = radius;
//
myImage.setPixel(x0,y0+radius,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0,y0-radius,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0+radius,y0,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0-radius,y0,plotColor);
while (x<y) {
if (f>=0) {
y- -;
ddF_y +=2;
f+=ddF_y;
}
x++;
ddF_x +=2;
f+=ddF_x +1;
myImage.setPixel(x0+x,y0+y,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0-x,y0+y,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0+x,y0-y,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0-x,y0-y,plotColor);
//
myImage.setPixel(x0+y,y0+x,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0-y,y0+x,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0+y,y0-x,plotColor);
myImage.setPixel(x0-y,y0-x,plotColor);
}
radius +=5;

}

Feel free to let me know if you made something based on this algorithm. Or maybe you want a big version in your living room… ;-).

Happy coding !!