intermomentary(6) XScreenSaver manual intermomentary(6)

intermomentary - Visualize the momentary and aggregate intersections between slowly moving circles.

intermomentary [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--foreground color] [--background color] [--num-discs disc count] [--draw-delay delayms] [--max-riders maxr] [--max-radius maxradius] [--fps]

The Intersection Momentary is a fun visualization defining the relationships between objects with Casey Reas, William Ngan, and Robert Hodgin. Commissioned for display at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

A surface filled with 100 medium to small sized circles. Each circle has a different size and direction, but moves at the same slow rate. Display:


A. The instantaneous intersections of the circles.
B. The aggregate intersections of the circles.

The circles begin with a radius of 1 pixel and slowly increase to some arbitrary size. Circles are drawn with small moving points along the perimeter. The intersections are rendered as glowing orbs. Glowing orbs are rendered only when a perimeter point moves past the intersection point.

Intermomentary accepts the following options:

Number of slowly moving and growing discs to use. The more discs, the more CPU power.
Delay in ms between drawing cycles. More delay, slower (but smoother and less CPU intensive.) art.
Maximum number of 'riders', single dots moving around the edge of the discs.
Maximum possible radius of a disc.
Display the current frame rate and CPU load.
Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.
Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.
Draw on the root window.
--window-id number
Draw on the specified window.

Setting the background to anything besides black confuses the intensity algorithm and will look terrible.

to get the default host and display number.
to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
The window ID to use with --root.

X(1), xscreensaver(1)

Copyright © 2003 by J. Tarbell <complex@complexification.net>.
XScreenSaver port: Mike Kershaw <dragorn@kismetwireless.net>

J. Tarbell <complex@complexification.net>, Jun 2003.
Mike Kershaw <dragorn@kismetwireless.net>, Oct 2004.

6.09 (07-Jun-2024) X Version 11