The Scribbles Series :: Charles Csuri, 2000

I am intrigued with the qualities of sketches in a computer generated three-dimensional world space. This goes back to my love of sketches and drawings by the old masters. I also love the prints of the Japanese master Utramaro. However, unlike a two-dimensional drawing my ribbon-like structure reflects light based upon angular relationship to light sources. There is also a greater emphasis upon the three dimensional space. I enjoy images which appear as a form of graffiti, meaningless marks or some private code. They were really inspired by the drawings of my granddaughter at her pre-schematic phase when there was no clear subject matter.

I wrote computer programs written in the AL language to generative the images. Within my program I used a mathematical function called the b-spline. The b-spline was also selected because of its curvilinear quality, which offers an elegance and beauty. The basic geometry of the objects is comprised of patches to work with Renderman and BRMT. This special function was written for me by Dr. Steve May of Pixar Inc. While the software does many things automatically, I found that it takes a great deal of trial and error adjusting parameters before I am satisfied with the ribbon-like representation.