This visual exhibit features tessellations that explore the interplay of art, nature, culture, shape, perspective, and math in our everyday lives. Created by Dr. Radmila Sazdanović from the Department of Mathematics at North Carolina State University using the software Tess and KnotPlot, these tessellations show symmetries of hyperbolic, negatively curved space and convey the beauty and subtlety of mathematical concepts that we encounter in our daily activities.
Tess-celestial is a web-based visual application built at NCSU Libraries as part of the Immersive Scholar project and is responsively designed for exhibit across a diverse range of large-scale displays. Tess-celestial is primarily featured in the iPearl Immersion Theater at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library at NC State University.
This application was built using Webpack 3 and is optimized to run in the Chrome browser. The layout design has been tested on displays ranging from 6:5 to 27:9 in aspect ratio. It is not currently optimized for personal devices.
Tess-celestial is hosted on GitHub Pages and can be run via the following link: https://jlangdesign.github.io/tess-celestial/.
The properties below indicate considerations with regard to optimal display of this content on large-scale displays.
Content type: web application available via URL
Required software: modern web browser (Chrome suggested)
Optimal aspect ratio range: 6:5 - 27:9 (square to landscape)
Optimal screen width: 2600px - 8000px
Optimal screen height: 2100px - 3800px
Optimal viewing distance: near to moderate distance
Large-scale: The large-scale display is designed for non-interactive video walls and plays automatically. It begins at the index page with images of the pieces, which are randomly ordered each time. After about 30 seconds, the display randomly chooses a piece to zoom in on, and its popup fades into view. After about a minute, the popup fades out and the display zooms back out into full matrix view. The display continues looping through each of the popups, and popups do not repeat until each has been played at least once.
Personal-sized: The personal-sized display is designed for smaller, interactive devices, such as desktops, laptops, and handhelds. Clicking/tapping on an image will make the popup appear. Within popup mode, the user can click/tap on the smaller (secondary) images to swap them with the larger (primary) image, allowing them to get a better look at the secondary images. They can also navigate to the popups of other pieces in the matrix by clicking/tapping the arrow buttons to the left and right of the popup. Lastly, the user can exit popup mode by clicking/tapping on the X button in the corner or anywhere outside of the popup and its buttons. The users can choose which pieces they want to view - there are no timed animations.
Additionally, users can also use a few keyboard shortcuts in popup mode. Pressing the left and right arrow keys will move to the previous and next popup, respectively. Pressing the Esc key will exit popup mode.
Radmila Sazdanović
Jasmine Lang
Walt Gurley