  Gaussian periods are certain sums of roots of unity whose study dates back to
Gauss's seminal work in algebra and number theory. Recently, large scale plots
of Gaussian periods have been revealed to exhibit striking visual patterns,
some of which have been explored in the second named author's prior work. In
2020, the first named author produced a new app, \texttt{Gaussian periods},
which allows anyone to create these plots much more efficiently and at a larger
scale than before. In this paper, we introduce Gaussian periods, present
illustrations created with the new app, and summarize how mathematics controls
some visual features, including colorings left unexplained in earlier work.
