From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2003-05-20T00:57:45+09:00
Subject: ANN: SuperShape


I figured I needed a bit of practice creating C-extensions and Tk apps, so 
that's why I did this...  that and it's kind of cool to play with.
....Well, to be honest, I'm avoiding working on my term paper ;-)

What is a supershape?

It's like this: A Belgian Biologist named Johan Gielis  discovered a 
formula that can create a vast diversity of natural shapes. By tweaking 
four parameters it can produce everything from simple triangles and 
pentagons, to stars, spirals and petals.

For more info on Super Shapes check out this article in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030331/030331-3.html

Also, check out this paper which goes into some of the math and suggests
settings to try:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/curves/supershape/

REQUIREMENTS:
  Tk
  gcc (to compile the C-extension)
 
 
INSTALLATION

  cd ext
  ruby extconf.rb
  make
  sudo make install

What you get:
  SuperShapes.so - This is a shared lib that you can require.
  
RUNNING THE EXAMPLE:

  ruby tk_supershape.rb 
  
  tk_supershape.rb plots the supershapes on a TkCanvas.  It allows you to 
  tweak the four parameters (m, n1, n2 and n3 - see the reference above 
  for values to try for interesting effects) and then see the resulting 
  shape.

Have fun.

Phil