Seen/Unseen explores the boundary between visible and hidden structures through a field of dynamic extrusions that emerge from a noise-modulated plane. The piece creates a sense of organic growth and decay as spiky formations rise and fall from the surface, suggesting natural phenomena like crystal formation or biological growth.

The visualization plays with the contrast between the ordered vertical columns and the chaos of their spiked surfaces, creating a tension between structure and randomness. The monochromatic palette with subtle red accents emphasizes the dramatic lighting and shadow play across the extruded forms.

Technical Implementation

The piece combines several technical approaches:

• Noise-based height map generation
• Geometric extrusion with varying intensities
• Normal-based lighting calculations
• Dynamic mesh deformation

The surface is continuously modulated by layered noise functions that control both the base plane's topology and the height/intensity of the extrusions. The spiky formations are created through vertex displacement along the surface normals, with additional noise functions controlling the distribution and character of the peaks.