Sunday, July 10, 2011

Grow Your Own


Screenshots of my 3rd iPad app that is still a WIP




"Grow Your Own" iPad App

This is the second in a series of art-centric applications I am developing. Released on July 1st, it actually did fairly well in the "Entertainment" category. It hovered around the top 100 in the US charts and reached top 50 in other regional charts. Not bad for something that didn't have any advertisement or press to it.

The app is actually 2 algorithms in one. The first is a variation of the Brooklyn Eels algorithm and the second is the port of the HTorsion algorithm.

This app required me to port the Perlin algorithm from Processing to Objective C. In a future post, I fully intend to release the source for that so other generative artists can use it.

Development of this app really made me focus on the memory management of the application. With the limited 20 Mb of memory an application is allowed to use, I had to learn how to manage memory better. Spent about 2 weeks trying to trace a memory leak.

Well, I feel like I'm growing as an Xcode programmer. Unfortunately, I still find the process very tedious. I might explore using Cocos2D or Corona SDK in my future developments.

In the meantime, below are sample images generated by the app:

IMG_0057



Grow Your Own iPad App



Grow Your Own iPad App



IMG_0047



IMG_0048