2021creative-coding · computer-graphics · independent

Extruded Shape Synth

Draw a line with the cursor, release it, and watch it render as an extruded 3D tube.

The tool's title card: five extruded ribbon shapes in cyan, mint, green, pink, and purple against black, each with its RGB value labelled, above the instruction "Draw a line using your cursor (hold + drag), release the mouse to render the geometric shape."
01

Overview

Extruded Shape Synth is the final project for Advanced Creative Coding, a unit taught byMick Griersonas part of Daan's MSc Creative Computing at the University of the Arts London (UAL). It's a small interactive tool with a single, clearly stated interaction, spelled out on its own title card: "Draw a line using your cursor (hold + drag), release the mouse to render the geometric shape." Every curve drawn becomes a tube extruded along that path, shaded and coloured in real time.

02

Concept & approach

The geometry technique, per the project's own write-up: each mouse position becomes a 2D shape (aTHREE.Shapecircle) placed at that point in 3D space; as the cursor moves, a new ring of vertices is generated around each successive position, and each vertex on one ring is connected to the corresponding vertex on the next to form triangular faces, the same construction a cylinder or hexagonal prism uses between two end-caps, except repeated over every new mouse position to iteratively extend the mesh along the whole gesture.

The same underlying extrusion renders in at least three distinct shading styles across the surviving captures. The plainest is a flat matte grayscale render that reads almost like a physical object, a bent length of pipe or rebar rather than a screen render.

A single extruded hook-shaped tube rendered in flat matte grayscale, its cross-section bands visible in the shading, resembling a bent length of pipe.
A single extruded hook-shaped tube rendered in flat matte grayscale, its cross-section bands visible in the shading, resembling a bent length of pipe.

A second pass swaps that matte shading for a teal wireframe/scanline treatment, exposing the extrusion's cross-section banding directly instead of hiding it under a solid surface.

The same style of extruded curve rendered as a teal wireframe with visible scanline banding across its cross-section.
The same style of extruded curve rendered as a teal wireframe with visible scanline banding across its cross-section.

A third returns to smooth shading, closer to the multicolour palette on the tool's own title card, this time in a single pink-to-purple gradient.

An S-curved tube rendered with a smooth pink-to-purple gradient shading, closer to the multicolour palette shown on the tool's title card.
An S-curved tube rendered with a smooth pink-to-purple gradient shading, closer to the multicolour palette shown on the tool's title card.

All surviving files are dated13 August 2021, alongside a closely related piece,Draw Blobs, made four days earlier in the same week.

03

Reflection

A self-contained sketch built for a single assignment brief: pick a shading style, draw a gesture, get an object back. The write-up frames it as one early attempt at a more general problem, going from a 2D gesture to a believable 3D solid, that recurs across Daan's later generative-geometry work.