Technology

The dynamic pictures found in our screensavers are great examples of the generative art taken to the next level. Since the early days of computer history, software developers have tried to "teach" computers to generate poetry, images, music and other forms of art. None of the previous attempts have been really successful. Majority of the work in this area was done by the programmers, not the professional artists, and hence many of those efforts can hardly be called art. Also, for a long time personal computers haven't been powerful enough to automatically generate images in real-time that would rival the conventional paintings.

The technology used in our screensavers has been developed by San Base - an artist at heart, with a great passion for both the programming and visual arts. Basing his work on techniques used in conventional paintings, he has been able to translate brush strokes into algorithms that can precisely convey his original design of a digital painting. Each picture starts with an idea described in a precise mathematical way that governs the shape, color as well as many other parameters of the generated image. This algorithm represents a "DNA" of the picture. Just like a DNA of a living organism, with a slight mutation, the image algorithm can produce an infinite number of unique paintings. Yet, each of those distinct images will follow the style and concept of the original painting.

After a great deal of effort that goes into devising algorithms or formulas of a picture, an artist relies on powerful computers to generate images and mutate them over time. Many of the modern CPUs are still not powerful enough to generate these images in real-time and only the latest developments in programmable video cards (GPUs) have made this technology possible. Instead of using video cards for rendering 3D images like video games do, our screensavers tap into the video card's raw compute power. Painting algorithms, translated into shaders - programs used by GPUs - painstakingly construct painting pixel by pixel at any desired resolution with an unprecedented level of details. Because of this, the application of our technology is much wider than just screensavers running at desktop resolution. We are able to produce 80-100 Mpixel paintings for printing or the real canvas. Please visit San Base gallery if would like to acquire any of our unique paintings on the canvas.

Our technology, dubbed "art of the 21st century" by many professional painters, starts a new trend in visual arts and design. We welcome you to the 21st century!