Fourier Text

Fourier Text — An homage to the glensstuff.com Fourier Synthesis Character Generator, which built alphanumerics on a scope from summed harmonics. The banner's whole beam tour (strokes and retrace jumps alike) is one complex periodic signal x(t)+i·y(t); what's drawn is its reconstruction from only the first N harmonics — real harmonic synthesis, not a blur. One harmonic is an ellipse, so at low N the letters melt into loops; raise the harm knob and overtones sharpen them into legibility. Type the banner in the Console's TEXT field; Model Out plays the actual harmonic stack.

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.