One of the mysteries of the substrate sketch is an image from which the visualization’s color palette is derived. Named pollockShimmering.gif in the sketch source code, I couldn’t actually find the image.
Turns out the GitHub repository for processing.js has the image stashed away. processing.js is a port of processing to JavaScript by John Resig. substrate was one of the sketches Resig ported to processing.js to demonstrate a certain level of compatibility with processing. The whole project also demonstrates the viability of JavaScript in the browser as an aesthetic visualization platform.
What’s the big deal about finding one little ole gif file? As I work to convert sketches from processing to NodeBox, I think it’s important to get as close as possible to the original results. This demonstrates understanding of the processing sketch and proficiency using NodeBox. Without this data, it would have been hard to do for substrate.
Besides, I like solving mysteries.