canvas-particle-network

v1.5.0

Published

2 years ago

Simple animated particle network using Canvas and JavaScript

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julianlaval

canvas particle network data visualisation

Canvas Particle Network

Overview

In this experiment, I set out to build a simple, sexy, interactive, and animated particle network using Canvas and JavaScript. Fully plug n' play, modular (via Browserify and WebPack), and customisable, just drop it in any webpage.

See it live on CodePen

Alternatively, fork the repo and open demo.html to give it a whirl; the minified version comes in at just under a cheeky 4KB uncompressed, and 1.3KB when gzipped!

Usage

The plugin is available as canvas-particle-network via Bower or NPM. Alternatively, you can simply clone this repository.

For a barebones implementation, simply add a HTML div to your body. You may specify its dimensions via CSS/JavaScript without any issues, as well as specify multiple instances. Then, simply add the JavaScript file to the end of your body and create a ParticleNetwork instance using your canvas ID.

<body>
	<div id="particle-canvas"></div>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="particle-network.min.js"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript">
		var particleCanvas = new ParticleNetwork(canvasDiv, options);
	</script>
</body>

Additionally, a number of options are supported (see below). Simply append any of these options to your arguments on creation.

var options = {
	particleColor: '#fff',
	background: '#1a252f',
	interactive: true,
	speed: 'fast',
	density: 'medium'
};
var particleCanvas = new ParticleNetwork(document.getElementById('particle-canvas'), options);

Options

options.particleColor

Type: String
Default: #ffffff

Color of the particles. Must be a valid hexadecimal code.

options.background

Type: String
Default: #1a252f

Specifies a background color or image to the canvas. Must be a valid image URL (e.g. img/demo-bg.jpg) or hexadecimal code.

options.interactive

Type: Boolean
Default: true

Allow users to click on the canvas to create a new particle. Its velocity will depend on the specified speed (see below).

options.speed

Type: String
Default: medium

Velocity of the particles. Must be one of the following:

none
slow
medium
fast

options.density

Type: String or Number
Default: medium (alias for 10000)

Density of the particles. Actual amount depends on the canvas size, and is calculate by dividing the total canvas size by the density. The following values are accepted:

low (or 20000)
medium (or 10000)
high (or 5000)
Any number

Please note that the higher the density, the more computationally intensive / slower each animation step becomes!

Roadmap

Have a suggestion? Let me know!

Contributors

A heartfelt thanks to the following people for making this project possible:

Julian Laval (@JulianLaval) - lead
Alex Schwartzberg (@aeksco) - committer
Filip Wieland (@FLamparski) - committer

If you would like to contribute, please submit a pull request that passes the grunt eslint task.

Acknowledgements

This experiment was inspired by the following resources:

"About the squad", Nick Ano - https://dribbble.com/shots/2188571-About-the-squad
"Particle Network Animations in JS", Alex Wendland - http://blog.alexwendland.com/2015/particle-network-js-animations/

Release History

v1.5.0 | 2016-02-24 | Custom particle density support
v1.4.0 | 2016-01-14 | AMD & CommonJS module support
v1.3.3 | 2015-11-29 | Bug fix on window resizing
v1.3.2 | 2015-10-04 | Added files to bower.json ignore
v1.3.1 | 2015-10-04 | Bumped version due to NPM versioning conflict
v1.3.0 | 2015-10-04 | Added NPM and Bower releases
v1.2.1 | 2015-10-04 | Minor README fixes
v1.2.0 | 2015-10-04 | Replaced bgColor option with background, added speed option, and is now responsive
v1.1.0 | 2015-08-18 | Added minified release
v1.0.0 | 2015-08-17 | Initial release

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.