Iterations

Using an analog temperature sensor, we extracted the analog value from the StandardFirmata and based the RGB values for the display based on it. Multipliers were applied to the values to obtain a variation in the colors. The color was applied to a particle system that we generated for increased control over the output instead of the given constant from generating an updating color as using the constant as an input for the projection texture on the ParticlesGPU resulted in square shapes that looked too defined and rigid to represent fireflies. The particle system we generated is based on a torus geometry because of the centrality of the shape and how it would result in the “fireflies” hovering around a point. We experimented with a lot of variations in the number of particles from the low 50-80s to highs as much as 12000s but limited the number of particles to 250-280. This resulted in a display sporadic enough to mimic fireflies in real life.

Sources

Tutorial Source for Particle System Generation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKGhdCbLIEU