From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2003-06-20T06:08:54+09:00
Subject: ANN: SuperShape 0.0.2 (and comparing GUI toolkits)

I updated the Tk app that demos the SuperShape extension so that it uses 
slider bars instead of entry boxes so that you can play with it more 
interactively.  I'm not real happy with the performance so I plan to do 
several other GUIs using various toolkits in order to compare performance 
issues as well as other aspects of various GUI toolkits.  I'll include 
these examples in future releases of SuperShape with the intent that it 
can become a means of comparing the various GUI toolkit bindings available 
in Ruby.

So What's a SuperShape?

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/

This package includes a C-extension with the SuperShape
formula. There's also a nifty Tk app that lets you play with different 
settings and then plots the supershape.

0.0.2: updated to use sliders (TkScale) instead of TkEntry