Spellburst: A Node-based Interface for Exploratory Creative Coding with
  Natural Language Prompts
Tyler Angert Miroslav Ivan Suzara Jenny Han Christopher Lawrence Pondoc Hariharan Subramonyam
Creative coding tasks are often exploratory in nature. When producing digital
artwork, artists usually begin with a high-level semantic construct such as a
"stained glass filter" and programmatically implement it by varying code
parameters such as shape, color, lines, and opacity to produce visually
appealing results. Based on interviews with artists, it can be effortful to
translate semantic constructs to program syntax, and current programming tools
don't lend well to rapid creative exploration. To address these challenges, we
introduce Spellburst, a large language model (LLM) powered creative-coding
environment. Spellburst provides (1) a node-based interface that allows artists
to create generative art and explore variations through branching and merging
operations, (2) expressive prompt-based interactions to engage in semantic
programming, and (3) dynamic prompt-driven interfaces and direct code editing
to seamlessly switch between semantic and syntactic exploration. Our evaluation
with artists demonstrates Spellburst's potential to enhance creative coding
practices and inform the design of computational creativity tools that bridge
semantic and syntactic spaces.