My new vector field renderer prototype is chugging along, and combined with hooking up .png output to the app I was able to make a couple of little animations with it.
The vector function is a combination of trig and exponentiation (mixing up x and y to keep things interesting across the plane). These animated GIFs show a zoom in toward the origin.
I’m especially fond of this chromatic-circle vector field mode – the vector length controls the circle radius, while the angle is interpreted as hue color:
Here’s the same function, field, and zoom, using a simple line representation of each vector (drawn from tail at evaluated point):
Can’t wait to hook up the controls & file persistence so I can do some deeper exploration of vector fields and their aesthetic possibilities!