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Geometee

geometee.com

140 pointsmxxx46 comments

Really cool! Please consider replacing the tiny knobs with something a bit more user-friendly like sliders

Yes, please. I like the concept, but found using the dials really fiddly and unintuitive. They don't seem to "turn" like one would expect, working only off the height of the mouse cursor after starting interaction.

Yea, it's simple once you figure out it's only using the y axis, but a bit dissonant that it's visually encoded on a circle/knob.

That said, really awesome demo!

It was actually intuitive to me.

But I'm used to interfaces for VSTs (audio generation/effects plugins) that usually have this exact interaction mode. See http://www.protoolerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/screenshot_O... for an example of one.

(Sometimes VST knobs also have the extra of horizontal movement being a "fine-tune" mode, even, which is very handy.)

I always found it strange that VST knobs were actually sliders in disguise. After a while you get used to it, but I can see how confusing it might be to users.

My favorite dial control is this JQuery Knob plugin: http://anthonyterrien.com/knob/

If he wanted the knobs to look exactly like his existing dials, I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to modify the plugin and add an extra dot at the position of the value.

I have no idea what I was just playing with but I spend way more time on it than I care to admit.

Same here. I ended up making parsnips: http://imgur.com/kYUA5nm

Can you buy the t-shirts? There is a preview but I didn't see any link to actually buy the thing...

I'm assuming you are supposed to upload it to the cheapest t-shirt vendor of your choice based on volume etc.

Ultimately I'll program the site to allow purchases. I hadn't gotten around to it, but given the interest the site's gotten recently I'm kind of kicking myself.

If there's a design you'd like on a tshirt, let me know and we can make it happen via RedBubble: http://www.redbubble.com/explore/geometee

This is great, in around 15 minutes I have some excellent desktop wallpapers for work! The exported image is 2400x3200 and scales nicely.

It'd be great to see what you came up with! I programmed this site in my spare time and haven't really seen what others have made with it.

That color picker is unusually intricate. Does it come from a library or was it made for this site?

If you have a modern browser, it's your OS color picker- the tool uses <input type="color" />.

http://slides.html5rocks.com/#new-form-types

Thank you both. I had no idea that HTML5 included this.

It seems to be using the native color picker. More info here: http://www.cssjockey.com/tips-tricks/native-color-picker-sup...

I spent a long time trying to make it into the Joy Division cover before working out that it wasn't going to happen...

Maybe a bit off-topic but I enquired on Quora a few months ago on how one would go about simulating the CP1919 Cover. (I wanted it laser cut on my MacBook Pro through the services of uncover.com) and here's the answer:

http://www.quora.com/Data-Visualization/What-would-be-a-way-...

What is this blob protocol? I've never seen it before and Google just thinks I meant to say blog (grrr, google).

You get to it by clicking export: blob:http%3A//geometee.com/1692d5b3-b837-4181-bae4-7c6a997ab22a

Ah, found it, very interesting: http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/FileAPI/#url

It's the URI behind the File API:

http://www.w3.org/TR/FileAPI/#url

I wish this was open source. I'd love to make it animated. It'd be real neat to have something that changes from one aesthetically pleasing shape to another.

Edit: Or having the various parameters put to different aspects of music would be awesome as well.

After reading "The Blind Watchmaker" I did something similar to this project -- in Visual Basic! (My excuse for using such an abhorrent language is that I was only 10 and didn't know any better).

Which makes me think that this project is ripe for a "artificial selection" mode in which you get multiple mutated copies and pick the right one, slowly directing the parameters in a 'pleasing' direction. Here's a cool video that demos Dawkins' watchmaker program from way back when: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUkL2bLFiOU

love how VB was able to introduce maybe 1/3 of the people on this site to programming but everyone dismiss it as pure garbage.

Wow, kids. In my day it was QBasic or GWBasic.

...changing the graphics from gorilla.bas i imagine :)

That is exactly how I started! Today's walled gardens don't seem to contain the same sandpits we had in the days of DOS and friends.

Hi everyone, I'm the man behind geometee. I haven't quite finished developing it, so hadn't widely announced it.

It's really exciting to get your feedback and see the awesome things you've been creating with it.

I will revisit the knob UI based on the feedback here. These seem really intuitive to some people (normally those who play around with audio software) whereas sliders might be more usable to the majority.

Any ideas for other directions I could take this?

I accidentally created a tree with way too many branches on http://geometee.com/#!/Work005FractalTree and now the presets load really slowly, sorry. Could you delete that?

Yeah that one can really kill your computer. In a proper desktop app the developer gets a lot more control over processing of tasks like this, but in the browser the best I can do is limit the number of branches or the depth, and hope your computer/tablet is fast enough to not get too slow. Thanks for the feedback!

Heh, this is pretty neat.

I just noticed that there's a little color swatch on the right side of the screen that allows you to change the background color. Combine all this with a nice color scheme and you can get something that looks really cool.

The annoying knob UI killed any enjoyment I might have got out of this.

I don't even know what it is, but seems cool.

Edit: oh, t-shirts...

The default design reminds me of Joy Division.

http://imgur.com/OaKCSUp

Please wire this up to a t-shirt printer! Maybe an artsy 3D printer-based plotter for the vector patterns?

http://cl.ly/image/1K0u1R0M0g0P

I want to buy one.

Killed the back button of my browser.

It's FABULOUS!

I can't turn the knobs at all most of the time. I'm using a mouse on a laptop; maybe this only really works on a tablet or phone?

That part is, to me, a UI disaster. What you can do though is click and drag upwards, even out of the knob, and it will work (barely, because it's incredibly not sensitive)

Yes. Those stupid knobs confused me terribly. I kept trying to move the mouse cursor as if it were my finger, using it to rotate that little notch on the knob. Because, like, it's a knob... right? I mean, I've used knobs before. That's how they work. And this is a knob. I know that, because it looks like one. EVEN THE STUPID BAR GOES ROUND THE KNOB. It's telling you to rotate it. And then you rotate it, and it doesn't work.

Dear people, stop doing this.

What, you don't usually tie a string around your knobs and pull up or down, depending on how you want it to turn?

Seriously, though, once I figured out how they work (it took a few seconds), it was just fine. I don't know what all the furore is about, it's at most a minor inconvenience.

The knobs are not turning while the picture is rendered. Depending on settings (tree with many branches) it can take a while.

No, the site fails on Android. Layout is broken and rendering is choppy.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into an alternative control that's more intuitive. This kind of knob control is common in a lot of audio applications and is really quite nice to use once you're used to it, but I want geometee to be a fun discovery for people, and this sounds like it caused you (and others) some confusion and frustration.

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