Introducing Processing and Installing It

So, you’re looking to dive into Processing? First off, just head over to the Processing homepage and hit that downloads tab at the top left to grab your installer.
Good news! It’s available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and even Raspberry Pi.
If you’re familiar with Arduino, you’ll notice that Processing has a similar interface because it was actually modeled after it.
When you start coding, you’ll find that Processing defaults to Java, but if you prefer, you can switch things up to JavaScript or Python by just selecting ‘Add Mode’.
Though Processing 4.0 doesn’t support Android coding just yet, we hear that’s on the way! Plus, you’ll appreciate how Processing lets you use libraries for extra functionality, just like Arduino.
And don’t forget, its structure includes setup and loop functions—setup runs once, while the loop does its thing repeatedly after that..

In Processing sketches, you’ve got two main players: the setup and draw functions.
The setup kicks things off by running once, and after that comes the map frame where the draw function does its thing.
You might notice that void setup and void draw look pretty similar, right? If you hit Command T, you can uncover options to organize your lines, which is super handy.
Now, if you’re doing some Arduino work, serial communication is your friend for transferring data to the PC.
And in Processing, you can easily send messages to the console using print or println.
For example, hitting println will pop up ‘hello world’, and since you’re running a PC program, it’ll even launch a window for you!.

So, let’s talk about Processing! This cool program lets regular folks and artists whip up PC programs without a hitch, and it all starts by setting up a 500x500 pixel window.
From there, you can use a simple line function to draw from point (0,0) to (250,250), plus you can even jazz things up by incorporating mouse movement for some dynamic drawing.
Although teaching Processing isn’t the main focus, it does a fantastic job as a development hub for tying into Arduino devices.
In future sessions, we’re planning to dive into how to send sensor data from Arduino to your PC—like readings from a fine dust sensor—and I’ll show you different ways to save that data in stuff like CSV files or databases..