Spiral Plot iPad app

The Spiral Plot app is an electronic take on the classic childrens toy Spirograph. But instead of gears and pens, you control the creation of images using slider controls. Fives lines are continually updated and drawn, interacting to create wonderful patterns. To understand how the lines are created, think of the earth revolving around the sun, and then in turn the moon revolving around the earth. Each colored lines shows the path of the 'moon' as it travels. The Speed options described below are the speed of the earth and the moon revolving. The Length options control the radius of earths orbit and the radius of the moons orbit.
In the deluxe option, you can think of the moon as having yet another satellite orbiting it, and you have the option of control the radius and speed of this satellites orbit. The colored lines then show the path of this satellite orbitting the moon as it orbits the earth as it orbits the sun. Confusing? Just play with it a while. You don't need to understand it to have fun!

The top portion of the screen draws a pattern with five continually updating colored lines.
The bottom portion of the screen has the controls. To alter a line, first tap the tab on the far left that has the same line as the color. Then use the slider controls to alter it.
  • The Speed sliders control have fast the lines move in a circular sense.
  • The Length sliders control the distance the line is from the middle of the image and the width of the band.
  • The Red, Green and Blue sliders let you control the colors with precision.
  • The Thickness slider controls the thickness of the lines in pixels.


On the far right of the controls panel you have buttons with various functions.
  • The Random button creates a new random pattern.
  • The Reset button restores all settings to their original default values.
  • The Clear button erases the screen, but the lines redraw it.
  • The Pause button stops the drawing process until it is pressed again.
  • Three checkboxes let you restrict what is changed when random images are created.
    • If Lengths is NOT checked, the lengths of the 'arms' will not change.
    • If Speeds is NOT checked, the speeds the arms revolve and rotate will not change.
    • if Colors is NOT checked, the colors will not change.
  • The Chaos button lets you turn the chaos option on and off. When it is ON new random patterns will be created every couple of seconds.
  • The Back button will return you to the main menu screen.


This screen dump shows the deluxe option. With the third 'arm' in place the patterns can be more complex and elaborate.


Here is another screen dump of the deluxe option.


The main menu includes instructions, but the best way to learn what all the controls do is to simply play with them.



About the programmer
Kevin Neelands lives in Gainesville, Florida (home of the fightin' gators) and gets his kicks writing silly little programs.