May 2025

An aperiodic tiling is a pattern that covers the plane without ever repeating itself (i.e., it is non-periodic). A few special shapes, arranged according to specific rules, can cover the entire plane, but the resulting pattern never repeats exactly. I challenged myself on a 3-day coding sprint to create a general-purpose script in Grasshopper that could generate these tilings. I set Socolar Tiling as my first target. This link contains great information about this and many other aperiodic tilings. Socolar…

The Fourier Transform is a powerful mathematical technique that allows us to analyze the different frequency components within a signal or shape. Its discrete version, the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), is used when working with numerical data. I studied the Fourier Series here before. One of the most fascinating aspects of the DFT is that it can represent a signal or shape using rotating circles (or vectors). Each circle corresponds to a specific frequency, amplitude, and phase. When connected in…