Processing 2: Creative Coding Hotshot

Learn Processing with exciting and engaging projects to make your computer talk, see, hear, express emotions, and even design physical objects

Overview

• Teach your computer to create physical objects, visualize data, and program a custom hardware controller
• Create projects that can be run on a variety of platforms, ranging from desktop computers to Android smartphones
• Each chapter presents a complete project and guides you through the implementation using easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions

In Detail

Processing makes it convenient for developers, artists, and designers to create their own projects easily and efficiently. Processing offers you a platform for expressing your ideas and engaging audiences in new ways. This book teaches you everything you need to know to explore new frontiers in animation and interactivity with the help of Processing.

"Processing 2: Creative Coding Hotshot' will present you with nine exciting projects that will take you beyond the basics and show you how you can make your programs see, hear, and even feel! With these projects, you will also learn how to build your own hardware controllers and integrate devices such as a Kinect senor board in your Processing sketches.

Processing is an exciting programming environment for programmers and visual artists alike that makes it easier to create interactive programs.

Through nine complete projects, "Processing 2: Creative Coding Hotshot" will help you explore the exciting possibilities that this open source language provides. The topics we will cover range from creating robot - actors performing Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", to generating objects for 3D printing, and you will learn how to run your processing sketches nearly anywhere from a desktop computer to a browser or a mobile device.

What you will learn from this book

• Make your computer see, hear, and feel with Processing
• Have fun with entertaining projects while learning new tricks with Processing
• Use Processing to teach a pair of cardboard robots to enact famous plays
• Write code you can run on a variety of devices ranging from your desktop computer to your Android smartphone
• Learn to build a custom hardware controller and control it using Processing
• Use Processing to create motion sensor games you can play using your Kinect
• Design objects you can print using a 3D printer with Processing

Approach

Using a project-based approach, you will be able to learn the coolest aspects of working with Processing. Each project contains step-by-step explanations, diagrams, screenshots, and downloadable material to make learning Processing even easier.

Who this book is written for

This book targets Processing developers ,visual artists, creative professionals, and students who want to move to the next level of learning Processing for gaining inspiration, work, or just for fun. The book assumes a basic understanding of programming. However, this book is also recommended to non-artistic readers, looking to expand their graphics and develop their creativity.

Nikolaus Gradwohl

Nikolaus Gradwohl was born in 1976 in Vienna, Austria, and always wanted to become an inventor like Gyro Gearloose. When he got his first Atari, he decide that becoming a computer programmer was the closest he could get to that dream. He has since made a living writing programs for nearly anything that can be programmed, ranging from an 8-bit microcontroller to mainframes. In his free time, he likes gaining knowledge on programming languages and operating systems.

Nikolaus has been using Processing since 2008, and has written countless sketches and some Processing libraries.

You can see some of his work on his blog at http://www.local-guru.net/