This is something that crops up once in a great while for me and has always annoyed me.
The problem: you can only do a curly brace array initialization at the point you declare your array - note that this is a Java thing.

So the following code will crash and burn:

1. float[] xx1;
2. void setup() { 
3.   size(100, 100);
4.   xx1 = { width/2, height/2,1,2,3};
5. }

There are times when I need a global array but can't initialize it at that moment and the curly braces make for a nice shortcut. My way around the problem is to do the following:

1. float[] xx1;
2. void setup() { 
3.   size(100, 100);
4.   float [] xx2 =  { width/2, height/2, 1,2,3};
5.   xx1=xx2;
6. }

This way I can use the curly brace shortcut and get the data into my global array.

Best Regards, Jim