snowflakes {snowflakes}

Plots Randomly Generated Snowflakes

Description

The function generates and plots random snowflakes. Each snowflake is defined by a given diameter, width of the crystal, color, and random seed. Snowflakes are plotted in such way that they always remain round, no matter what the aspect ratio of the plot is. Snowflakes can be created using transparent colors, which create a more interesting and more realistic image. Images of the snowflakes can be separately saved in svg files and used in websites as static or animated images.

Usage

snowflakes(xCoor, yCoor, radius, orientation = pi/6, 
    deltaCoef = 15, color = "#00007744", anotherColor = color, 
    aspectRatio = NULL, seeds = NULL) 

Arguments

xCoor

The X coordinate of the snowflake. This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

yCoor

The Y coordinate of the snowflake. This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

radius

The radius of the snowflake. This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

orientation

The angle of the snowflake relatively to its center, measured in radians. Note that the rotation of the snowflake around its center can be visible only within a range from 0 to the sixth of the constant pi because the snowflake has 6 axes. This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

deltaCoef

By how much the radius is lager than the width of the crystal. The width of the crystal is computed as a ratio of the "radius" over "deltaCoef". This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

color

The color of the snowflake (can be transparent). This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

anotherColor

The color of the main frame of the snowflake. This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

aspectRatio

Aspect ratio of the snowflake. Aspect ratio is chosen automatically so that the snowflake remains round. If changed, the snowflake might not be round any longer. This argument may be a vector when multiple snowflakes are plotted.

seeds

Random seed that defines a unique snowflake given that other parameters are assigned to their defaults.

Details

See the vignette for more details and examples.

Value

Returns seeds that were used to generate the snowflakes. The user can save them and use the ones that are associated with the most appealing snowflakes.

Author(s)

Svetlana Eden <[e-mail]>

References

https://github.com/SvetlanaEden/SNOWFLAKES

Examples

t = seq(0, 5*pi, .5)
xCoor = t*cos(t)
yCoor = t*sin(t)
radius = 1
orientation = runif(length(xCoor))*(pi/6)

set.seed(1)

plot(xCoor, yCoor, type="l", axes = TRUE, ylab="", xlab="",
ylim = range(yCoor) + radius*c(-1, 1)*3,
xlim = range(xCoor) + radius*c(-1, 1)*0, col=gray(.9))

returnedSeeds = snowflakes(xCoor = xCoor, yCoor = yCoor, radius = radius,
  orientation = orientation, seeds = 1:3,
  color = gray((1:length(xCoor))/(length(xCoor)+1)), anotherColor = "gray")