Sentence clouds & paragraph trails

This patch is programmed to read an external text file through a ‘Data Array’ actor and format the words into a visual grid that can then be used by a ‘3D Particles’ actor to form sentence clouds or paragraph trails. The word grid (once completed) is then captured as a picture into the media bin and made available to the particles actor.

In the download there are example text files with short paragraphs. The source external text file has been formatted with single word line entries – all up about 225 words (this was formatted externally using TextEdit software). The text file is read into Isadora with a Data Array actor and formatted into a 15 x 15 grid on a Virtual Stage via a Text Draw actor. The grid coordinates are provided by another external text file and read sequentially by another Data Array actor into the Text Draw actor. The grid coordinates have been generated by MeshLab software. A Counter actor then delivers each word to the Text Draw actor as its position is being provided by the gird coordinates. A feedback loop is created by feeding the Virtual Stage back into the Text Draw actor with a Get Stage Image actor, thus a visual grid of words is constructed on the Virtual Stage. This word grid is now a sprite sheet that can then be used by a 3D particles actor to deliver each section of the grid to individual particles as they are emitted. The Virtual Stage is captured as an image with the ‘Capture Stage to Image’ actor and the capture process is halted and deactivated once the image file appears in the media bin. This new image asset is accessed by the ‘3D particles’ actor to form the visual display and cycle through the word grid delivering each word to an individual particle as it is emitted.