Making Patterns       Click to return to the homepage.

Lines: Length: 1 50     Angle: 0 360    ; Thickness: 1 10
Colour: Red: 0 255     Green: 0 255     Blue: 0 255   
           
Horizontal Posn: Mean: 0 500       Std Deviation: 0 200
Vertical Posn: Mean: 0 500       Std Deviation: 0 200
Size: Mean: 10 50       Std Deviation: 0 30
                       
Help Making Patterns

You can make different patterns by scrolling the sliders to change the values of the six variables. You do this by moving the cursor to be over the black button in the slider, holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse to the right or left. You can also change a value by clicking on the button to the left of the slider (to reduce it by one) or to the right (to increase it by one). Try changing the value in the example slider below.

Variable: 0 100
The length (L) variable specifies how long the line is used in drawing the pattern. The angle (A) variable specifies what angle is used as each segment of the pattern is drawn. The thickness (T) variable specifies the width of the line that is used to draw the pattern. The colour of the line is determined by how much red (R), how much green (G) and by how much blue (B) is used. As each of these variables is changed, the colour shows in the box to the right of the colour sliders.

To get started, set L to 5 and A to 90 then click Draw. Click Clear then change L to 2 and click Draw. Click Clear then change A to 91 and click Draw. Then change A to 89 and click Draw without clicking on Clear. While doing the above, change the values of R, G and B to get different colours and change T to get different thickness of lines. Try other combinations. Using different value of A provides many different neat patterns. Can you find them?

Help Making Circle and Rectangle Patterns

You can make different patterns with circles and rectangles by scrolling the sliders to change the values of the six variables for Horizontal and Vertical Positions and Size. You do this by moving the cursor to be over the black button in the slider, holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse to the right or left. You can also change a value by clicking on the button to the left of the slider (to reduce it by one) or to the right (to increase it by one).

The Horizontal and Vertical Positions specify where the circles or rectangles will be positioned in the drawing square. The mean is the average position while the standard deviation indicates how much this position will vary from circle to circle or rectangle to rectangle. The Size specifies the size of each circle or rectangle. The mean is the average size while the standard deviation indicates how much this size will vary.

To get started, set the standard deviations of the horizontal and vertical positions to 200 and the means to 250. Click Circles. Click Clear then click Squares. Now change the standard deviation for the verical position to 50 then click Clear then Squares. Notice that the squares all now lie near the centre of the drawing area vertically.

Change the deviations of the positions both to 100. Change the mean of the size to 20 and the standard deviation to 15 and click on Squares. Now change the standard deviation to 0, click on Clear then Squares. Notice that with a standard deviation of 0, all the squares are the same size.