The Total Gallery

The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that a monkey with a typewriter and an infinite amount of time would be able to produce any text by randomly hitting keys in succession. The monkey is meant to represent an abstract device that produces an endless random sequence of letters and symbols.

The Total Gallery is an attempt to implement this theorem by creating images instead of text. The program uses a pseudorandom number generator to decide how an image is created. A width and height are chosen, a base is chosen to initially fill the image, then the program can choose to draw a random number of primitives and apply effects to the image. This can be seen as giving the monkey MS Paint instead of a typewriter.

Originally every image was created by setting each pixel to a random color. I then added the option of drawing primitives like points, lines, triangles, etc. The program can also generate a palette to use instead of always choosing a random color to draw with.

The Image generation settings let you choose which bases, primitives, and effects will be used to generate images. You can also choose from some presets which will give some interesting results.

Image Settings Controls Image Viewing Controls

If you found this interesting you might also enjoy my recreations of Conway's Game of Life and the Chaos Game.