Thank you, Jeremy. I'm glad you like it. The "shading" you see is a simple transition from white to black based on the distance between any two nodes. The rendering is all openGL, so it runs in near-realtime when there aren't too many nodes near each other (I want to do a test using openFrameworks to see if there really is the much-hyped performance boost).

The idea is an expansion on an simpler sketch that combined the ideas behind Casey Reas' simple-rule works and the popular perlin-noise slinky line drawings easily found on flickr. I gave the animation a beginning and end by setting targets for the particles; in between those periods of directed motion, the particles travel along randomized, perlin-noised guided paths.

i love the first exploding part!
and the photos are great too
thanks for explaining the process =]