Animated Spiraling Hexagons

hexagon spiral chasing-polygon interactive animation

Seven hexagons — one at the centre and six orbiting it — each filled with chasing polygons that spiral endlessly inward. The original chasing hexagon around hexagon drew static spirals; this variant brings them to life with continuous animated motion.

Interactive Demo

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How It Works

The seven-hexagon arrangement comes from the original static demo: a central hexagon with six copies placed at the midpoints of its edges, each rotated −60° and translated outward by twice the vector from centre to midpoint.

Each hexagon is filled with chasing polygons — at every iteration, a new polygon is formed by taking a point partway along each edge of the previous one. With a small step fraction (~0.03–0.12) and many iterations, the edges trace out a dense inward spiral.

The animation comes from two sources:

  • Oscillating fraction — the step size breathes with a sine wave, making the spiral contract and expand rhythmically.
  • Colour cycling — each edge is drawn in HSL space with hue rotating over time, iteration depth, and edge index. Saturation and lightness also shift gently.

A slow global rotation ties the seven hexagons together into one unified, hypnotic motion.