Lattice

Lattice — a solid drawn in depth by terminals. [lattice](https://github.com/0magnet/lattice) is an ordinary terminal program that draws one cross-section of a turning solid in characters. Here 3N copies of it run, each in a terminal of its own, and the terminals are stacked as transparent sheets: N across each axis, three families each perpendicular to the other two. Whichever way the stack is turned, one family faces you and the other two are edge on, so the solid has depth from every side, and each family is brightened as it comes face on and dimmed as it goes edge on, so the solid stays as bright as it turns.

The terminals are real: each is xterm-go's emulator, and each program writes into it the same escape sequences it writes into any terminal. Only the drawing is the rack's, every character on a clear sheet, because a cell at the default background is clear, as it is in a translucent terminal. Seen from behind, a sheet reads mirrored, as glass does.

The solid is turned by the time of day, not by the rack: lattice -axis z -slice 6 in a real terminal of 24 columns by 12 rows beside the page draws the same slice at the same moment, because a terminal's size is the resolution — zoom it out and it draws a finer one.

The Lattice module (in the View bay) is how the sheets are drawn: their rows, style, look, opacity, which families there are and what the view turns. Its L draws any other model the same way, from that model's trail, mesh or dots.

Open Lattice in chaosrack →

It opens running, on the model selector, with its own knobs. Rotate it by dragging, zoom with the wheel, and turn the parameters to see what the figure does when the system changes.