Spinning Donut

A 3D spinning donut animation rendered in ASCII art, written in C.

Description

This program renders a 3D spinning torus (donut) using ASCII characters in the terminal. The animation is created by calculating the 3D geometry of the torus and projecting it onto a 2D plane, then mapping different ASCII characters to represent different lighting intensities.

How It Works

The program uses mathematical formulas to:

1. Create a 3D torus
2. Apply rotation transformations
3. Project the 3D points onto a 2D plane
4. Calculate lighting based on surface normals
5. Map lighting values to ASCII characters
6. Render the output to the terminal

For a detailed mathematical explanation, see EXPLANATION.md.

Requirements

• C compiler (gcc recommended)
• math library (libm)
• POSIX-compliant system (for usleep)

Compilation

make

Or manually compile individual versions:

# Basic version
gcc -Wall -Wextra -O2 -o donut donut.c -lm

# Commented version
gcc -Wall -Wextra -O2 -o donut_commented donut_commented.c -lm

# Customizable version
gcc -Wall -Wextra -O2 -o donut_customizable donut_customizable.c -lm

Running the Program

Basic Version

./donut

Commented Version

./donut_commented

Customizable Version

./donut_customizable [options]

Options for customizable version:

• -R <value>: Major radius (default: 2.0)
• -r <value>: Minor radius (default: 1.0)
• -K1 <value>: Projection constant 1 (default: 30.0)
• -K2 <value>: Projection constant 2 (default: 5.0)
• -A <value>: Rotation speed A (default: 0.04)
• -B <value>: Rotation speed B (default: 0.02)
• -d <value>: Delay in microseconds (default: 30000)
• -h: Display help message

Example:

./donut_customizable -R 3.0 -K1 40.0 -A 0.03

Press Ctrl+C to exit any version of the program.

Versions

1. donut.c: Basic implementation of the spinning donut
2. donut_commented.c: Same implementation but with detailed comments explaining the math and logic
3. donut_customizable.c: Version with command-line parameters to customize the donut's appearance and animation

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.