Process Compendium

Process Compendium

Recreation of a classic generative artwork


As a coding challenge for myself, I recreated the Process Compendium artwork by Casey Reas in P5.js to enjoy on the web. Process Compendium is a series of artworks where the designs are defined by a group of “elements” with simple behaviors applied to how they interact, drawing instructions are given for each artwork which forms the visual design. An example of behavior would be: “change direction while touching another Element”.

I ran through the original description and reverse engineered a solution for the descriptions. In my recreation, I render a second canvas that shows the elements interacting with one another in order to demonstrate how the visual designs are being formed.

Process Compendium in debug mode
Process Compendium Process 8

I created a microsite to host these sketches if you would like to check out all the recreations from Process 4 to Process 18