[saman_b]

Nice, it would be nice to see those pieces. I guess you are looking to study arabesque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabesque_(Islamic_art), which includes calligraphy and patterns.

"In the first mode, each repeating geometric form has a built-in symbolism ascribed to it. For example, the square, with its four equilateral sides, is symbolic of the equally important elements of nature: earth, air, fire and water. Without any one of the four, the physical world, represented by a circle that inscribes the square, would collapse upon itself and cease to exist..."

I have limited knowledge on the topic to be honest, you might find this one related though: http://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Architecture-650-1250-Richard-...

I used the digital canvas as a medium to project what I had in mind with added randomness to make it dynamic. Although the persian/islamic art, I was exposed to in childhood and teenage-hood, helped me with the idea but I was not trying to connect it to any particular known art. It would be great if you can provide some pointers to both Pali and Thai scripts/art, so I can study them and probably expand the project on them. I had some other ideas for the project, but unfortunately since arabic/persian fonts cannot handle spaces and words becomes a series of disconnected letters I could not fully implement them. e.g. I cannot make verses follow a specific path due to that problem.

Wow those pictures are really interesting, specially the first one. I have seen how they do this with Chinese calligraphy but seeing the Arabic calligraphy is surprising. Thanks for sharing :) I am sure you had fun taking those shots.

[contingencies]

I can provide photos of the restaurant pieces in a day or two... maybe send me an email? Thanks for the leads. I think what I really was looking for was a pan-traditional typology with semantic notes... maybe it doesn't exist, and your project can become one? If so I'm interested to help.

I just found http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7969063/Persian_and_Arabic_Ca... which looks promising.

Pali is the scriptural language of Theravada Buddhism, which dominates Burma/Laos/Cambodia/Thailand/Sri Lanka. The Tai regions (eastern and historically northern Burma/far southern China/Laos/Thailand, bits of Vietnam, historically part of eastern India) used to have some geometries related to calendrical systems, some of which my former associate wrote up over here: http://pali.pratyeka.org/#Five (that page also has good explanations of basics).. you can see some related images I have shot in southern China at https://plus.google.com/photos/106883718971909092529/albums/... .. and for the magical ward populist stuff in Thailand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantra_tattooing and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatha .. I also have a good deal of Berber patterns recorded from Doiret, Tunisia at https://plus.google.com/photos/106883718971909092529/albums/...

[saman_b]

That would be great, my email is: saman<dot>b<at>gmail<dot>com. I am not aware of such collection, and sure I would be happy to collaborate with you and expand on this.

That sounds like a promising collection.

Thanks for the pointers. But wow, the Thai magical ward shapes matches my mental image! In an older version of this project with PHP, I even had the same idea as spire shaped verses! I need to find more resources on this. This is really interesting, thanks a lot. The calendrical system looks nice too. You got a great photo collection :) Although the last pointer points to another album I guess? I can't find any Berber patterns and it is pointing to Tattouine photos instead of Doiret.