Computation as an Expressive Medium

1
Computation as an Expressive Medium

• Lab 11 Looking through the Braitenberg Vehicle
  code
• Annie Lausier

2
Braitenberg! (It's so fun to say. Try it!)

• Look through the sections of the code
• How-to tips to
• change the behavior of vehicle
• add another set of sources
• put sources on vehicles
• do nifty drawing effects

3
The Methods and Classes
SensoryField
Vehicle
Sensor
Sensor()
Vehicle()
get()
drawMe()
drawMe()
setup()
SensoryField()
addSource()
moveMe()
setLocation()
draw()
deleteSource()
getSense()
checkCollision()
keyPressed()
getSource()
checkBounds()
Source
Source()
mousePressed()
numSources()
setVelocityL()
drawMe()
mouseReleased()
update()
setVelocityR()
setLocation()
updateGround()
doSenseLogic()
hitTest()
updateAll()
getValue()
Wheel
Wheel()
getVisible()
drawMe()
getInfluence()
setVisible()
setVelocity()
drawMe()
4
The Vehicle
Vehicle
Sensor
Sensor()
Vehicle()
drawMe()
drawMe()
2x
moveMe()
setLocation()
getSense()
checkCollision()
checkBounds()
setVelocityL()
Wheel
Wheel()
setVelocityR()
2x
drawMe()
doSenseLogic()
setVelocity()
5
The SensoryField
SensoryField
get()
Source
SensoryField()
Source()
addSource()
drawMe()
deleteSource()
setLocation()
getSource()
hitTest()
update()
getValue()

getInfluence()
ArrayList sources
float field
field is a 2D array of float values from 0 to
255(we translate these values to a color to
draw the ground)
6
Change the vehicle behavior?

• Keys can adjust type of vehicles
• Can create new Vehicle subclass to make new kind
  of vehicle

7
Add another type of source?

• Create a new SensoryField class
• Things to watch for
• almost all the methods reference ONLY
  lightsGround
• You'll have to change the Vehicle's Sensors'
  getSense methods (or add more sensors on the
  Vehicle)

• doSenseLogic() will probably need to be changed,
  so that the wheels get a combination of inputs
• defining the pixels of PImage ground will need to
  somehow show sources differently

8
Put a source on a vehicle

• You need the Sources to be in a SensoryField of
  their own so you'll want a pointer field in
  Vehicle (perhaps just an id that references the
  Vehicle's particular Source in the SensoryField
  ArrayList)
• And don't forget to change the source location
  when the Vehicle moves (instead of when the mouse
  drags)

• Things to watch for
• If a Vehicle has a Source and can sense that same
  type of Source on other Vehicles, then you need
  to make sure that it subtracts the value of its
  own Source when sensing (the getReading under the
  x, y of the Sensor)
• Sources are currently added or subtracted from
  the SensoryField when user presses number keys
  make this different for your new SensoryField,
  since Sources are tied to Vehicles instead of
  free-floating.

9
Do nifty drawing effects

• Now that you have a 2D array, you don't have to
  draw to a PImage ground
• You could draw rect()s or ellipse()s or use some
  other kind of icon to represent each "pixel" in
  the ground of your source

Image from carnivore.webcam.sniffingusing
Safari .html icons for each pixel.