Open source building blocks for computational design. Est.2006

thing

noun

Anything that is or may become an object of thought.
An approximate way to refer to an idea, subject, event, action, etc.
An object or entity that is not or cannot be named specifically.

Blog seriesOf umbrellas, transducers, reactive streams & mushrooms

Part 1 - Venturing into the land of thi.ng/umbrella...
Part 2 - Functions, Transducers, Reducers, Iterables
Part 3 - Convolutions, Cellular Automata
Part 4 - Disjoint Sets, Graphs, Distance Fields

What?

thi.ng is a truly manifold long-term project devoted to Computational Design. Not a framework, nor bound to any specific use case, environment or even language, it's a vast and mature set of complementing code libraries, which has organically grown to approx. 320 sub-projects, with at least half still being actively maintained. This site is a work in progress and so far merely a portal to these projects, though will ultimately serve as a comprehensive hub and archive of all related outputs. Only open source projects & educational resources are presented here.

Who?

Created and maintained by Karsten Schmidt since 2006, the project has been supported by a small group of wonderful contributors. Over the past 23 years, Karsten has produced and contributed to hundreds of open source projects, including Processing and Clojure. He has written about, lectured and taught computational design and is listed in the top 1% on Codersrank. His work has been exhibited internationally, incl. Barbican, Victoria & Albert Museum London, MoMA New York, Garage Moscow, Design Museum Holon, CAFA Arts Museum Beijing.

Why?

Originally, thi.ng was created to help realise Karsten's diverse work projects/commissions and experimental design research, forming an open toolkit we can grow and control as much as possible. Over the years, the conceptual scope has expanded dramatically. Early thi.ng projects began when Computational Design was still in its infancy. With only limited open source tooling in that domain available at the time, some of our projects were pioneering and helping to fill that niche and using these tools for teaching/evangelizing became other primary project goals. Altogether, an additional 200+ examples are bundled with the largest projects in the collection, with more being added regularly.

How?

thi.ng is based on a bottom-up growth & design philosophy: small pieces with narrow scope and utility recombine to fulfil demands of ever changing use cases in similarly varied fields. Because of the wide scope, we're usually working on projects in a round-robin manner, based on feedback and loosely defined long-term goals, which may (and are encouraged to) shift over time. This has included large rounds of refactoring, adopting new languages, platforms or techniques and occasionally leaving others behind, once a project is in a stable condition. Some of the oldest projects here are still enjoying an active following, even after almost 10 years since their last official release...

Full spectrum of topics

One endeavor, hundreds of facets… This current site is a precursor of an ongoing effort to create a semantic graph of all projects, assets and relationships - a massive undertaking, which already spawned several new projects in the collection. Until ready, the following interactive tag cloud is an attempt to give a birdseye view of the subjects covered by various parts of the collection.

Show all 330 projects, use the fuzzy search box or click on a tag to explore and only show relevant projects. Multiple tags can be entered to further narrow the search results…

The current primary development focus is on data-driven, functional tooling for TypeScript and browser-based technologies. However, thi.ng overall aims at different programming approaches and languages, incl. Clojure, ClojureScript, C11, Houdini VEX. All projects share a common philosophy with an emphasis on composition, interop, simplicity, data transformation, introspection & visualization and use of powerful data structures. Most projects favor a mixture of functional and declarative designs over classic object-oriented approaches, though we fully embrace the target languages, strive to be undogmatic and embrace hybrid solutions where they make sense. Parts of the collection also focus on domain-specific languages and offer core infrastructure to help with their implementation.

typescript datastructure 2d clojure 3d workshop browser array binary animation geometry codegen clojurescript generative graph conversion webgl fileformat c canvas ui visualization functional processing.org export math svg toxiclibs image iterator typedarray color graphics hiccup tree async cli literate-programming parser pixel simulation acceleration bezier dsl generator interval particles audio uk clipping query random circle hardware java nd networked physics polygon component design interpolation shader transducer vector ast bbox fabrication html interop mesh rstream sort stream art baremetal glsl gui logger polyline reactive sample time wasm agent analysis architecture composition database dsp line shape stm32 webassembly align arc channel distance event pipeline points template text area declarative format gpgpu map matrix memory memory-mapped nft object string tool voxel 1d adjacency aos bigint css dataflow dom encode filter float gradient json pattern rgb set subdivision typography zig 8bit alpha benchmark blend cellular-automata chart compiler cubic dag decode diff drawing no-browser rect render shader-ast topology 16bit ansi bitmap curve data-oriented ellipse equality fuzzy grid hash hdom immutable intersection kernel markdown nodejs noise opencl opengl oscillator path recursion serbia server simd transformation triples utf8 xml ziglang 24bit 4d algebra allocator api ascii blur cache cartesian circumcenter concatenative evolutionary fft file forth germany glitch grammar graphviz grayscale group hex keys language logic macro node palette paper polymorphic quadratic quaternion scenegraph sculpture semweb sensor soa sparse spatial spline state texture theme union variable voronoi wrapper 32bit 4bit assembly bidirectional bindings blit branding buffer cloth convex csp datalog dependency dual floodfill frequency hierarchy identifier invert javascript layout livecoding lut multitasking neighborhood nested partition plot pointfree pool prng proximity raymarch rdf rdom resize rewrite rgb565 scaffold scatter sdf self-organizing semantic-web subscription sutherland-hodgeman syntax synthesis table tessellation trie validate waveform wordwrap (522 more...) 1bit 64bit allpass arduino axidraw bar base16 base62 base64 behavior biquad bitfield blocking centroid chaikin cluster communication comparator compression convolution crypto csv cursor cycle datadriven deep delay denmark difference dither dmx dominant dynamic easing edges entropy envelope force fork-join free-list fsm fxhash gaussian hermite hexdump history houdini imgui installation integer interaction ioc k-means lifecycle linear linked-data list merge mime modular morton multiplex normal number offset optimization org-mode packer painting parametric peg penplotter polyglot portugal prefix process projection promise pubsub quadedge queue reducer reflect rotation router rulebased runtime scheduler scope search shared-memory shuffle sliding-window smoothstep sparql split stack svf swatches sweden switzerland swizzle throttle tiff timeline touch transclusion transpiler triangle trigonometry tutorial tween typecheck unicode uuid vdom version vm wildcard z-curve 2bit angle argument artnet assemblyscript assert attractor automata avif base10 base26 base32 base36 base58 base8 base83 base85 batch belgium bencode blue blurhash boids bollinger boolean bot braille braitenberg brown bun bundler calculation cancel candle capacitance cellular cie1931 clock coerce combinator compare complex complexity compute configuration console constant-folding constants constraint contours coo coroutines cosine count counter cpp crop crossover cryptography csc csr current cv d-heap data dataviz date dce debug decorators degree delaunay delete dem density derivative descend detect deterministic diagonal differentiation digital directed disjoint-set distributed distribution donchian dotproduct dots download driver dropping dynamodb ecs edge edit editlog ema emoji emscripten emulator energy entity epoch errors escape exif exponential fbo feature feedback fiber fiducial field fifo flatten flocking fluid fog follow font form fractional france frustum game gamma generic genetic geo geometric geotiff gif gis git global go golden-ratio graycode green hair halton hatching hcy hdpi heading headless heap heuristic higher-order hilbert histogram hollerith homogeneous hsi hsl hsv hull i18n ibm icc icon id iges impulse incremental inference infinite inheritance inline inspect instrument instrumentation interfaces interleave interpreter io isoline israel iterative join jpeg k-means++ k-medians k-nearest kd-tree keyframe kids korea kronecker l-system lab laplacian lazy lch length levenshtein lfo liang-barsky lifo light lighting linkedlist lisp lookat low-discrepancy lpg lru macd manhattan marbling marchingsquares mask mass mean measure mediarecorder memoization mep metric millisecond mimedb mixins mono monte-carlo mouse mousewheel moving-average mru msdf msgpack multi-expression multipass multiple-dispatch multitouch multivariate mutation name namespace navigation npm npr nurbs obj octtree oklab origami ortho osc output padding pairing-heap patch pbm percent perimeter permutation perspective pfm phenotype php plastic-number png pointcloud poisson polar porter-duff power precision predicate premultiply presets prime priority-queue probabilistic property pyramid quadtree radix ramp range ray reaction-diffusion recursive red redo refract regexp region relative repl resistance retina rfid ring rle roc rpn rule s-expression schema separation sequence serialport shadertoy sharpen shear shift shortcode si side-effect signal skew skiplist slovakia slugify sma smoothmax smpte solver span spectrum speed sphere spiral splat srgb standard-deviation statistics steering step stereo stochastic stratified struct style swap symbolic t-norm tab tags tangent tangle task temperature terrain threshold timeout timestamp tlru tokenizer trace transaction tree-shaking triangulation trim trix ttl tuple turkey turtle type types ulid undirected undo uniform unionfind unique units uri utc valence value-semantics varint velocity vertex vex video vocabulary voip voltage volume wav waveshaper webp websocket weighted white wiki windowing wma wordsize worker writing xslt xyy xyz ycbcr ycc zigzag zipper

thi.ng/umbrella

Catalyzing learnings from earlier projects and languages used, and the primary focus for the past 5+ years, at least half of all thi.ng projects have been developed in TypeScript as part of the thi.ng/umbrella monorepo. With several of these projects in development since 2015, in early 2018 a decision was made to merge efforts & develop them further under a common umbrella. Although most of these packages are largely independent, they address a vastly wider set of topics with a more cohesive philosophy, shared infrastructure, types, interfaces, release cycles, examples, interlinked documentation etc.

Counting in at ~185,000 lines of code, documentation & diagrams and another ~33k SLOC of commented examples, most of the 500+ topics forming the above tag cloud are addressed by packages in this monorepo. With very few exceptions, no third party dependencies are used and all umbrella internal relationships are explicitly stated in each package's readme. All umbrella packages are released under the Apache Software License 2.0.

The heatmap timeline below gives an overview of the various packages and when they were added/included in the umbrella monorepo. The start dates shown here do not necessarily indicate project beginnings, only when packages were added & refactored in their current form.

Award-winning work & workshops, powered by open source

"A rising tide lifts all boats."

Since early on, starting with toxiclibs in 2006, projects in this collection have been used across many fields & industries (and helped kicking off several startups), incl. architecture, product & interaction design, data visualization, digital fabrication, interior design, print-on-demand, medicine, branding, motion graphics/VFX, game development, audio production, art installations, etc.

Several projects in which thi.ng projects played a key role were nominated for & won international design prizes, incl. Cannes Lions, D&AD, Red Dot Design Award, British Designs of the Year, Lighting Design Awards, Type Directors Club Award, Media Guardian Innovation Award.

Education and usage as teaching tool have been equally important and long-running project goals. Over the years, many of our projects have been used in this capacity in various schools, universities, workshops and festivals worldwide. Karsten himself has been teaching dozens of workshops since 2008.

For project news, stream notifications & future workshops, please follow us on Mastodon or subscribe to our low frequency newsletter!

Contributors & sponsors

Eternal gratitude to the following humans and organizations for supporting the ongoing development of these projects.

If you'd like to become a supporter yourself, please visit our GitHub sponsors or Patreon profile. Thank you very much!

Thanks to the following organizations for funding earlier development through commissions, collaborations, client work, lectures, workshops & consulting in the past:

ACT Center Gwangju
Architecture Association (DRL) London
Barbican Centre London
The Bartlett (UCL) London
Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Bezalel Academy of Art Jerusalem
CADA Lisboa
CIID Copenhagen
Digital Domain
ETH Zürich
Google
Graphic Design Festival Breda
HEAD Geneva
Hirsch & Mann
Institute of Contemporary Arts London
Jason Bruges Studio
Kingston University London
Kunstuniversität Linz
Kurye Video Festival, Istanbul
Leeds College of Music
Lexus
London College of Fashion
Metropolitan University London
Moving Brands
Münster School of Architecture
Nike
Nokia
OFFF Lisboa
onedotzero
Open Data Institute
Resonate Festival Belgrade
SAC Städelschule Frankfurt
Science Museum London
Sensorium Festival Bratislava
Semipermanent Auckland
Sheffield Hallam University
Sint-Lukas University Brussels
Squint Opera
Technology Will Save Us
Tellart
Todays Art Festival, Den Haag
Troika UK
Universal Everything
Universidade Católica Portuguesa Porto
Umeå Institute of Design
University for the Creative Arts Epsom
University of Applied Sciences Augsburg
University of Lincoln
Watershed Bristol
Westminster University London
Wieden + Kennedy
Winchester School of Art
Wolff Olins
Victoria & Albert Museum London