Books \ Processing.org

	Getting Started with Processing Casey Reas and Ben Fry. Published June 2010, O'Reilly Media. 208 pages. Paperback. » Order Print/EBook from O'Reilly » Order Print from Amazon.com This casual, inexpensive book is a concise introduction to Processing and interactive computer graphics. Written by the founders of Processing, it takes you through the learning process one step at a time to help you grasp core programming concepts. You'll learn how to sketch with code -- creating a program with a few lines of code, observing the result, and then adding to it. It was written to help reader: Quickly learn programming basics, from variables to objects Understand the fundamentals of computer graphics Get acquainted with the Processing software development environment Create interactive graphics with easy-to-follow projects Use the Arduino open source prototyping platform to control your Processing graphics

	Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists Casey Reas and Ben Fry (Foreword by John Maeda). Published August 2007, MIT Press. 736 pages. Hardcover. » Order from Amazon.com Downloads: Table of Contents and Index (PDF, 500 KB) Sample Chapters with Contents and Index (PDF, 7.6 MB) All code examples in the book (ZIP, 15 MB) Errata (Updated 22 April 2010) This book is an introduction to the ideas of computer programming within the context of the visual arts. It targets an audience of computer-savvy individuals who are interested in creating interactive and visual work through writing software but have little or no prior experience. It is the result of six years of software development and teaching experience. The ideas presented have been continually tested in the classrooms, computer labs, basements of universities, art and design schools, and arts institutions. The majority of the book is divided into tutorial units discussing specific elements of software and how they relate to the arts. These units introduce the syntax and concepts of software such as variables, functions, and object-oriented programming. They cover topics such as photography and drawing in relation to software. These units feature many short, prototypical example programs with related images and explanation. More advanced professional projects from diverse domains including animation, performance, and typography are discussed in interviews with their creators. The extension sections present concise introductions to further domains of exploration including computer vision, sound, and electronics. Essays by Alexander R. Galloway, Golan Levin, R. Luke DuBois, Simon Greenwold, Francis Li, and Hernando Barragan. Interviews with Jared Tarbell, Martin Wattenberg, James Paterson, Erik van Blockland, Ed Burton, Josh On, Jeurg Lehni, Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, Mathew Cullen and Grady Hall, Bob Sabiston, Jennifer Steinkamp, Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, Sue Costabile, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, and Mark Hansen. If you are an educator, you can request a desk/exam copy from the MIT Press website. It's also possible to request a PDF preview.

	Visualizing Data Ben Fry. Published December 2007, O'Reilly. 384 pages. Paperback. » Order from Amazon.com The O'Reilly website says, "How you can take advantage of data that you might otherwise never use? With the help of a powerful new programming environment [Processing], this book helps you represent data accurately on the Web and elsewhere, complete with user interaction, animation, and more. You'll learn basic visualization principles, how to choose the right kind of display for your purposes, and how to provide interactive features to design entire interfaces around large, complex data sets." Martin Wattenberg from the IBM Watson Research Center says, "This wonderfully detailed guide, by one of the masters of modern data graphics, tells you everything you need to know to code your own visualizations from scratch. Perhaps most valuable are the many examples where Fry demonstrates how to refine a bare-bones concept into a beautiful, effective finished piece. Read this book, and you'll never again be dependent on someone else's view of your data."

	Learning Processing: A Beginner's Guide to Programming Images, Animation, and Interaction Daniel Shiffman. Published August 2008, Morgan Kaufmann. 450 pages. Paperback. » Order from Amazon.com Visit the Learning Processing website. Dan Shiffman says, "This book tells a story. It's a story of liberation, of taking the first steps towards understanding the foundations of computing, writing your own code, and creating your own media without the bonds of existing software tools. This story is not reserved for computer scientists and engineers. This story is for you." The publisher says, "This book teaches you the basic building blocks of programming needed to create cutting-edge graphics applications including interactive art, live video processing, and data visualization. A unique lab-style manual, the book gives graphic and web designers, artists, and illustrators of all stripes a jumpstart on working with the Processing programming environment by providing instruction on the basic principles of the language, followed by careful explanations of select advanced techniques."

	Processing for Visual Artists: How to Create Expressive Images and Interactive Art Andrew S. Glassner. Published August 2010, A K Peters. Paperback. » Order from Amazon.com The book description reads, "Learn how to create gorgeous and expressive imagery with the Processing programming language and environment... Walk with veteran author Andrew Glassner on a journey of shared discovery as he takes actual Processing projects from inspiration to reality. You'll closely follow every step he takes and see exactly how each project evolves, including big and small mistakes he's made along the way (and how to fix them!), and the times when he changed direction. Once you see the results, you'll understand why programming is such a powerful skill for self-expression." This book has a different perspective from the others because of Glassner's deep experience in computer graphics. His bio reads, "Dr. Andrew Glassner is a writer-director, and a consultant in story structure, interactive fiction, and computer graphics. He started working in 3D computer graphics in 1978, and has carried out research at the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, Case Western Reserve University, the IBM TJ Watson Research Lab, the Delft University of Technology, Bell Communications Research, Xerox PARC, and Microsoft Research... He is also a well-known writer, and has published numerous technical papers and books on topics ranging from 3D modeling, rendering, and animation to digital sound synthesis. His book '3D Computer Graphics: A Handbook for Artists and Designers' has taught a generation of artists through two editions and three languages. Glassner created and edited the 'Graphics Gems' series and created and wrote several chapters in the book 'An Introduction to Ray Tracing'. He wrote the two-volume text 'Principles of Digital Image Synthesis'."

	Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art (Foundation) Ira Greenberg (Foreword by Keith Peters). Published May 2007, Friends of Ed. 840 pages. Hardcover. » Order from Amazon.com Sample chapters available from Friends of Ed. The Friends of Ed website says, "This book is written especially for artists, designers, and other creative professionals and students exploring code art, graphics programming, and computational aesthetics. The book provides a solid and comprehensive foundation in programming, including object-oriented principles, and introduces you to the easy-to-grasp Processing language, so no previous coding experience is necessary. The book then goes through using Processing to code lines, curves, shapes, and motion, continuing to the point where you'll have mastered Processing and can really start to unleash your creativity with realistic physics, interactivity, and 3D! In the final chapter, you'll even learn how to extend your Processing skills by working directly with the powerful Java programming language, the language Processing itself is built with." (Quote from the Friends of Ed website)

	The Essential Guide to Processing for Flash Developers Ira Greenberg (Foreword by Daniel Shiffman). Published December 2009, Friends of Ed. 489 pages. Paperback. » Order from Amazon.com Ira tells us, "The Essential Guide to Processing for Flash Developers takes a focused, hands-on approach to learning Processing that builds upon your familiarity with Flash, and experience with ActionScript and object-oriented programming concepts. The first three chapters are designed as a language primer explaining all the Processing specific programming theory you'll need to know, with numerous code examples. The rest of the book is project based, including a character animation; particle engine; serious game, with AI; cellular automata framework, including a .lif file format parser and a 3D data visualization. Each project is structured to allow less experienced coders to get up to speed relatively quickly, while leaving room for more experienced programmers to take the initial project concepts and run with them—building more complex applications. The last chapter introduces Processing’s Java mode, providing an easy to navigate bridge to programming in Java, Processing’s underlying host language."

	Programming Interactivity: A Designer's Guide to Processing, Arduino, and openFrameworks Joshua Noble. Published July 2009, O'Reilly. 736 pages. Paperback. » Order from Amazon.com The O'Reilly website says, "Make cool stuff. If you're a designer or artist without a lot of programming experience, this book will teach you to work with 2D and 3D graphics, sound, physical interaction, and electronic circuitry to create all sorts of interesting and compelling experiences -- online and off. Programming Interactivity explains programming and electrical engineering basics, and introduces three freely available tools created specifically for artists and designers: Processing, Arduino, and OpenFrameworks."

	Algorithms for Visual Design Using the Processing Language Kostas Terzidis. Published May 2009, Wiley. 384 Pages. Hardcover. » Order from Amazon.com The Wiley website says, "this book offers a series of generic procedures that can function as building blocks and encourages you to then use those building blocks to experiment, explore, and channel your thoughts, ideas, and principles into potential solutions. The book covers such topics as structured shapes, solid geometry, networking and databases, physical computing, image processing, graphic user interfaces, and more."

	Making Things Talk: Practical Methods for Connecting Physical Objects Tom Igoe. Published September 2007, O'Reilly. 428 pages. Paperback. » Order from Amazon.com This book focuses on networking electronic devices with Arduino and Wiring, but includes many examples that use Processing for graphics. The O'Reilly website says, "Through a series of simple projects, this book teaches you how to get your creations to communicate with one another by forming networks of smart devices that carry on conversations with you and your environment. Whether you need to plug some sensors in your home to the Internet or create a device that can interact wirelessly with other creations, Making Things Talk explains exactly what you need... With a little electronic know-how, a couple of inexpensive microcontroller kits and some network modules to make them communicate using Ethernet, ZigBee, and Bluetooth, you can get started on these projects right away"

	Generative Gestaltung Hartmut Bohnacker, Benedikt Gross, Julia Laub, and Claudius Lazzeroni. Published November 2009, Schmidt Hermann Verlag. 500 pages. Hardcover. Text in German. This book is extraordinary. The design is clear and refined and the production quality is fantastic. This is the design book about Processing that we've been hoping for. Unlike most other Processing books, it doesn't discuss programming basics so it's free to cut to the exciting examples. The author's write, "We... want to provide a solid foundation with this book for how this modified design process can be used. The software in the book section »Grundlegende Prinzipien« illustrate some generative techniques on the basis of the four design areas: color, shape, typo and image. This repertoire is expanded in the section »Komplexe Methoden« by combining a number of principles on the basis of six larger-scaled examples. In this section you will also find explanations of advanced techniques." More information about buying this book and the forthcoming English translation, as well as the complete source code for the examples, are at the book's website.

	Processing - eine Einführung in die Programmierung Andres Wanner (Chapters by Hans Peter Wyss, Roland Broennimann and Roman Schnyder). Version 1.1, Published May 2010, Lulu Press. 83 pages. Softcover. Order from lulu.com Book website Diese Publikation stammt aus dem Unterricht an der F+F Schule (Zürich, Schweiz) und der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, FHNW (Schweiz). Dies ist zur Zeit das umfassendste deutschsprachige Lehrmittel für Processing. Die vorliegenden Version 1.1 wurde im Hinblick auf die aktuelle Sprachversion von Processing überarbeitet. Sie enthält auch ein aktualisiertes Kapitel über Arduino von Hans Peter Wyss und Roland Broennimann. Ein Download-Link für die Übungsbeispiele ist inbegriffen.

	Built with Processing Published March 2007, BNN. 232 pages. Softcover. Text in Japanese Note from Casey: "I received a copy of this book from the authors on a recent trip to Japan. It's a beautifully produced full-color book with sections introducing Processing, featuring work created with Processing (many are from the Exhibition section of the Processing website), and introducing programming through progressively complicated examples. The majority of the book is an introduction to programming. There are many good examples and the code is color-coded like in the Processing Environment. This book is less comprehensive than the Greenberg and Reas/Fry books, but it appears to be a good, brief introduction." There's additional information on the publisher's website.

	Processing is also discussed through examples and projects in the following books: Getting Started with Arduino. By Massimo Banzi. Examples use Processing to communicate with an Arduino board. Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers. By Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe. Examples using Processing for RS-232 communication and computer vision. Aesthetic Computing. Edited by Paul Fishwick. Casey Reas and Ben Fry contributed a chapter entitled "Processing Code: Programming within the Context of Visual Art and Design." Hacking Roomba: ExtremeTech. By Tod E. Kurt. Processing is introduced and used to design an application to control a Roomba (a robot vacuum cleaner). Analog In, Digital Out. By Brendan Dawes. Numerous projects created with Processing are illustrated and discussed.