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A DRAWING BECOMES A SCORE

Give your drawings
a voice.

FILIGRANA turns the paths in an image into a quiet, unfolding piece of music. The drawing provides the material; wandering voices give it time, tone, and movement.

01 · WHY

A way to listen to a drawing

A drawing is usually something we look at. FILIGRANA asks what it might sound like if its lines could be followed. The result is not a fixed song hidden inside the image, but a way to hear its contours, crossings, and rhythms as they are explored.

Each listening is a little different. The image sets the paths, while the travellers and instruments shape how those paths unfold in sound.

02 · HOW IT WORKS

From ink to sound

  1. 1

    Read the image

    FILIGRANA finds darker marks, thins them into paths, and connects nearby strokes into a graph. Crossings become junctions. A random starter drawing is chosen on each fresh load; you can also upload your own BMP, JPEG, PNG, or WebP image. Image analysis happens in your browser.

  2. 2

    Let voices travel

    Three independent travellers move along the connected paths. They begin at separate points and choose a route whenever they reach a junction. Set them to wander at random, explore less-travelled lines, or follow the gentlest turn.

  3. 3

    Turn shape into pitch

    For resonant voices, the length of a line segment sets its pitch: longer segments sound lower, shorter ones higher. Pitched instruments gather distance across small segments and turn it into notes. Curves brighten each note, while longer segments ring longer. The drawing shapes the raw pitch; the tuning root, selected scale, and octave shape the final note.

  4. 4

    Let the sound breathe

    Choose instruments and adjust each traveller’s pace, note spacing, volume, decay, and stereo position. Space adds a soft reverberant tail; Delay adds echoes. The selected drawing view shows the paths and travellers as they move.

03 · SHAPE THE LISTENING

A few useful controls

Scale
Choose the notes that pitches can settle on. Major and minor scales give different colors; Free leaves pitches unsnapped.
Octave
Move one traveller’s notes higher or lower without changing its route.
Line sensitivity and cleanup
Adjust which marks count as ink, preview the paths, and choose how strongly to filter small disconnected marks.
Journey seed
Use the same seed and Restart to repeat route choices for the same drawing and settings.

04 · YOUR DRAWING

Made on your device

Uploaded images are analyzed locally in your browser and are not sent to a server. Save composition keeps the image and musical settings together in a file. Video captures the live drawing with audio as an H.264 MP4; Render creates an audio file as MP3 or WAV, or an MP4 video, faster than real time. Rendered files and videos include the composition sidecar.

The public site uses Umami for anonymous, aggregate page visits and selected product actions. Events report broad outcomes such as starting audio or completing an export; drawing contents, filenames, audio, seeds, and detailed control values are never sent. Tracking respects the browser’s Do Not Track preference.

05 · CREDITS

With thanks

We thank Golaleh Ghafoori for the inspiration behind FILIGRANA and for the drawings that helped bring the instrument to life.

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