unitcells

unitcell is the way I configure instances of objects to create patterns. I’m borrowing the term unitcell from crystallography, where a crystal consists of repeating unitcells in a lattice.

The way I have it set up breaks down repeating patterns into two parts: the sequencer and the unitcells.

The sequencer configures how many unitcells will be drawn, along with how they are scaled and positioned: for example a 3d lattice, a grid, a hexagonal grid, or a spiral are all things I’ve used.

The unitcell is responsible for what is drawn, and only needs to worry about its own contents. It has access to its indices in the sequencer or introduce randomness when drawing the cell.

Here are a few things I’ve made with unitcells.

The above pattern was cut out of paper using a vinyl cutter.

I created this pen plot with an early prototype of unitcell and a previous project substations. I used a function of grid position and randomness to determine whether to show the cell.