This series of sketches was created following a first encounter with the Shrine of the Book, home of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It led to the the commission of Javascriptorium by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Spiral landscape

Given a certain acquaintance with the Metaphysics of Spirals, it is possible to represent a landscape using one single continuous line...

The height coordinates for the terrain are generated in real-time using Perlin Noise which can produce a unique configuration for each "seed" number (e.g. 12345678 for the landscape represented here...)

control

• • Clicking on screen will change the "seed" number based on mouse coordinates, resulting in a new terrain generation.

Topographic text

Naturally using the underlying spiral as a medium for the text: The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 40.

This book is the only Dead Sea Scroll found in its entirety and chapter 40 deals with the return of exile, from Babylon to Jerusalem, through the wilderness.

control

• • Clicking on screen will change the "seed" number based on mouse coordinates, resulting in a new terrain generation.

Sliding text

Starting to look for readability solutions...

In this sketch, it is possible to read the whole chapter by positioning the camera at the zenith.

control

• • Left mouse button + dragging: camera orientation.
• • Right mouse button + dragging: camera zoom.

Turn table

Here again, the key to readability involves camera manipulation. In addition, a manual rotation system with some high degree of inertia is incorporated...

control

• • Left mouse button + dragging: camera orientation.
• • Right mouse button + dragging: camera zoom.
• • Left / right arrow keys: rotation of the system.
• • Space key: stopping motion.

Laser guided

The beginning of a decent solution for reading: camera smoothly following the spiral, perpendicularly to the topography...

Height variation

Playing with noise: here's what happens when the terrain's height factor is oscillating between two peak values...

Straight in the desert

The final sketch of the series: full readability is reached while finalizing the metaphorical aspects...

control

• • Left / right arrow keys: moving through the text.
• • Top / bottom arrow keys: switching between verses.
• • Space key: stopping motion.

acknowledgments

• • Thanks to Ben Fry for this vision.
• • Thanks to Susan Hazan for the impulse.
• • Biblical content has been obtained from the following sources.