Description

The Tron blur is a semi-painterly effect that modifies the pixels of an underlying image during the process of a number of particles travelling across the screen. (The name was chosen only because the paths at times remind me of the light cycle sequence in the movie "Tron") Conceptually it employs a method similar to the Maze Blur effect, only the pathing mechanism has changed. A variety of output effects are possible by altering various parameters of the generation algorithm.

Applets

TronBlur01 300 x 300

Algorithm

The path generation algorithm was chosen because of its interesting pattern of development. As the paths develop, color from the underlying image is dragged along the path leading to interesting decompositions of the original image.

Geneation begins with a number of "walkers" that traverse image space according to a few simple rules. Motion is constrained to avoid running off the edge of image space, and to avoid doubling back on paths already travelled. Further, each walker has a preference for following walls in a left-handed or right-handed priority. Whenever a walker is unable to turn and follow in the preferred direction it will either continue straight, or failing that be forced to turn in the non-preferred direction.

The path itself is not typically displayed, only the results of its creation. The applet above allows you to toggle the display of the path to illustrate the underlying structure.

Gallery

Single pass of tronblur using various settings:

600x480 59k 600x480 52k 600x480 49k

600x480 45k 600x480 40k 600x480 52k

The blur can also be applied repeatedly, using the output of one pass as the input to the next, creating very drastic blurring even at single-pixel grid resolution:

600x480 37k 600x480 29k 600x480 28k

And for reference, here is the original:

600x480 88k

Inspiration

This project was a direct outgrowth of the Maze Blur project, a result of considering alternate methods of path generation.