I spent much of the afternoon today making interactive diagrams. These are for a class I’m teaching at NYU in computer graphics.<\/p>\n
To make these, I start by writing down rough notes for the lecture, so I can see the sequence of things. Then at each point in that sequence I think about what picture (if any) I would draw on the blackboard to get that particular point across.<\/p>\n
Where there is such a picture, I ask myself, “What is the story this picture wants to tell?” It’s usually a mini-narrative — a single concept that I am trying to get across in that moment.<\/p>\n
In the case of computer graphics, this mini-narrative is usually some key insight about an algorithm. If I were lecturing about “Pride and Prejudice”, each picture would probably represent a transition in the relationships between characters over the course of a scene.<\/p>\n
Then comes the fun part. Using the tools I’ve built in my Chalktalk system I sketch the thing out in code, first as a static picture to draw, and then with gradually more behavior.<\/p>\n
I usually spend way too much time tweaking each diagram, but that’s because working on them is do darned fun. I’m very much in a state of flow while I’m making them, having a grand old time.<\/p>\n
I’m also learning all sorts of things at once — about effective design, about how to improve my tool set, about storytelling, and about the subject that I’m teaching.<\/p>\n
If you ever want to know a topic better, I strongly recommend trying to teach it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent much of the afternoon today making interactive diagrams. These are for a class I’m teaching at NYU in computer graphics. To make these, I start by writing down rough notes for the lecture, so I can see the sequence of things. Then at each point in that sequence I think about what picture … Continue reading “Zen and the art of interactive diagrams”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15699"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15699"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15702,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15699\/revisions\/15702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}