Chladni Sand Field
Fine sand on a black vibrating plate. The pointer tunes the plate, so the grains shiver loose and crawl into a new symmetric nodal-line figure; a press strikes it and a shock spreads while the figure re-forms. Real standing-wave maths on the GPU, with knobs for complexity, settle, strike and the calm zone behind your copy.
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Find the quiet lines.
Every surface hums at some frequency. Retune it and the sand crawls to the places where nothing moves.
Props
"use client";
import { useEffect, useRef } from "react";
import type { CSSProperties, ReactNode } from "react";
/**
* ChladniSandField: a full-bleed background of fine sand on a black plate that
* is being tuned. Moving the pointer sweeps the drive frequency, so the grains
* shiver loose and crawl across the dark into a new nodal-line figure; a press
* strikes the plate, every grain jumps in a shock that spreads from the touch,
* and the figure re-forms over a second and a half.
*
* HOW IT WORKS (WebGL2). A Chladni plate's standing wave is a sum of modes
* f(n,m) = cos(n*pi*x)cos(m*pi*y) - cos(m*pi*x)cos(n*pi*y); sand ends up on
* the lines where the plate does not move, F = 0. Here the tuning is a point
* (n, m) in mode space and the plate blends the neighbouring integer modes
* with a smooth falloff, so the figure always MORPHS, it never snaps between
* presets. Every grain lives in a float texture (position and velocity,
// ---------------------------------------------------------------
// Full source available with a viberdy Pro subscription.
// https://viberdy.dev/pricing
// ---------------------------------------------------------------
}About this background
Sprinkle sand on a metal plate, bow its edge, and the grains leap away from the parts that move and settle on the lines that do not. This background does exactly that on the GPU. The plate's standing wave is a sum of modes, cos(n pi x)cos(m pi y) minus cos(m pi x)cos(n pi y), and the tuning is a point wandering through mode space; the plate blends the neighbouring integer modes with a smooth falloff, so a figure never snaps to the next one, it melts into it. Each grain is a texel of position and velocity. A shader reads the wave and its exact gradient at the grain, steps it toward the nearest silent line, and adds hops that scale with the drive and with how hard that spot of plate is shaking, so sweeping the pointer shivers the sand loose and it crawls into the new figure, then tightens into hairlines. A press strikes the plate: a ring travels outward from your touch, kicks every grain it crosses, and the drive rings down over a second or two. Dense stacks lift toward ice white, and a calm zone dims the sand behind your headline.
Curator’s note
Chladni's plates are two hundred years old and still the most graphic thing physics has made: a bow on a brass plate and the sand draws a symmetric figure. This is that, tuned by your hand, drawn as a hundred thousand grains on black.
Pairs well with
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