Max Cooper's Ascent — Making of the Music video
Enter the 5th dimension
contents
Here, I show some early prototype scenes generated from the animation system during development and testing. There was a lot testing.
These scenes are short and evolve slowly. They built from keyframes (but fewer) in the same way as the final Ascent video.
The animations here have no audio.
A cube evolves from 2 to 8 dimensions. The colored lines in the center show the unit axes. This scene served as the inspiration for the start of the Ascent video. The scene ends with the dimensions shrinking back to zero, one at a time. Notice the variety in the complexity of the projected scene as we rotate through various angles.
One of my favourite scenes. Cubes are added to the scene as the camera zooms in. The lines are formed by the area maps of digits of `\pi` projected onto faces of the cubes. Each scene evolves with one additional dimension added.
A variety of short scenes in black-and-white and color. Rectangles correspond to area maps on the faces of the cube, color-coded by digit.
Area maps projected onto cubes with transparency encoding the z-position (distance from camera).
A long and slow mix of various color scenes
A long and slow mix of various black-and-white scenes.
Happy 2026 π Day—
Art for the 5%
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and enjoy the art — but only if you're part of the 5%.
Go ahead, see what you can't see.
Ishihara's Tests for Colour Deficiency
Authentic and accurate images of Ishihara's test plates photographed (and lovingly color-corrected) from the 38-plate Ishihara's Tests for Colour Deficiency.
I also provide the position, size, and color of each circle on each test plate.
Symmetric alternatives to the ordinary least squares regression
What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry? — William Blake, "The Tyger"
This month, we look at symmetric regression, which, unlike simple linear regression, it is reversible — remaining unaltered when the variables are swapped.
Simple linear regression can summarize the linear relationship between two variables `X` and `Y` — for example, when `Y` is considered the response (dependent) and `X` the predictor (independent) variable.
However, there are times when we are not interested (or able) to distinguish between dependent and independent variables — either because they have the same importance or the same role. This is where symmetric regression can help.
Luca Greco, George Luta, Martin Krzywinski & Naomi Altman (2025) Points of significance: Symmetric alternatives to the ordinary least squares regression. Nat. Methods 22:1610–1612.
Beyond Belief Campaign BRCA Art
Fuelled by philanthropy, findings into the workings of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have led to groundbreaking research and lifesaving innovations to care for families facing cancer.
This set of 100 one-of-a-kind prints explore the structure of these genes. Each artwork is unique — if you put them all together, you get the full sequence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 proteins.
Propensity score weighting
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. —Mr. Spock (Star Trek II)
This month, we explore a related and powerful technique to address bias: propensity score weighting (PSW), which applies weights to each subject instead of matching (or discarding) them.
Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2025) Points of significance: Propensity score weighting. Nat. Methods 22:638–640.
Happy 2025 π Day—
TTCAGT: a sequence of digits
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and sequence digits like its 1999. Let's call some peaks.
