Normally distributed circle packing

Reading, Shiffman’s “The Nature of Code” book, I realised that I could get a more natrual effect in my circle packing experiment by positioning the circles according to a normal (gaussian) distribution.

This means importing the Java Random() class:

import java.util.*; 
Random generator; // Java's Random class

Create the Random() object in setup():

generator = new Random();

Use the nextGaussian()method of this Java class along with a mean and standard deviation that I can tinker with to create new random numbers on a normal distribution

// generate position using Java Random() class
float xNum = (float) generator.nextGaussian();
float standardDeviationX = width/15;
float meanX = width/2;
float xPos = standardDeviationX * xNum + meanX;

float yNum = (float) generator.nextGaussian();
float standardDeviationY = height/15;
float meanY = height/2;
float yPos = standardDeviationY * yNum + meanY;

Sketch: inclusion_collision_testing_4.pde