[HN Gopher] Algorithmic Botany
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       Algorithmic Botany
        
       Author : the-mitr
       Score  : 157 points
       Date   : 2021-06-03 11:42 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (algorithmicbotany.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (algorithmicbotany.org)
        
       | kragen wrote:
       | Lindenmayer's work is absolutely wonderful.
       | 
       | Although L-systems are ruthlessly simple, sometimes they are a
       | little unintuitive, because the rewrite rules are in string
       | space, not physical space. A couple of months ago I wrote
       | http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/skitch#!rrrrrrrrfffffff...]
       | which I think might be a promising alternative that's maybe
       | easier to understand, although it's less powerful. I haven't
       | figured out how to get a dragon curve out of it yet, but I think
       | it's possible.
       | 
       | If you like L-systems you will almost certainly like
       | https://contextfreeart.org/ as well.
        
         | penteract wrote:
         | Here's a Heighway dragon (it follows the same idea as your Koch
         | snowflake). It could be shorter if 45 degree turns were
         | possible.                   rrr@4[a rrr rrr rrr [c@0.5a]f rrr
         | [d@0.5[b cf rrr df rrr rrr rrr cf rrr rrr rrr df rrr]]f rrr cf
         | rrr rrr rrr df]
         | 
         | http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/skitch#!rrr@4[a_rrr_rrr...
         | ]
         | 
         | and a Levy dragon rrrrrrrrr@3.5[a rrr rrr rrr [b@0.5a]f rrr bf
         | bf rrr bf]
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | Wow, that's wonderful! The Levy dragon, like the Koch
           | snowflake, shows one of the weaknesses of the system; I was
           | thinking of adding G to go forward without leaving a trace
           | and /3 to divide the turn angle by 3 (for any value of 3,
           | including negative values).
        
         | doersino wrote:
         | Wow, that's a fun tool! Very enjoyable to play with. Thank you
         | for making it.
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | You're very welcome!
        
       | kf43y wrote:
       | Kill Fauci!
        
       | taneq wrote:
       | Aaaand it's gone. The front page of HN is a bit rough on smaller
       | web servers.
       | 
       | I read 'The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants' a bunch of times, even
       | implemented some of the algorithms in Java (although I mostly
       | just used recursion rather than L-systems). Must get back into
       | that.
        
       | commie123 wrote:
       | All Fauci supporters MUST DIE!
        
       | dintech wrote:
       | Botany Bay... Botany Bay??! Oh no...
        
       | Tade0 wrote:
       | Professor Prusinkiewicz belongs to a generation of Polish
       | Engineers/Computer scientists who greatly expanded on the work of
       | their predecessors who in turn had to essentially restart the
       | education system after WW2.
       | 
       | Much of the syllabus for undergraduate courses was written by
       | these people, who continued contributing well into retirement. I
       | daresay the tech landscape in this country today would be very
       | different without them.
        
       | evilc00kie wrote:
       | I once used 'The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants'
       | (http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop) to build a simple
       | L-System web service while studying:
       | https://lsystems.raphaelpour.de/
        
         | mahathu wrote:
         | Uh, not sure what I did exactly, but this is really cool:
         | https://i.imgur.com/6wDRXMd.png
        
           | someguyorother wrote:
           | Looks like a relative of the Gosper curve!
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosper_curve
        
           | evilc00kie wrote:
           | You can do pretty impressive stuff by just tweaking random
           | knobs. I'd recommend playing with the angle and iteration
           | setting. But be patient with the iteration one. The computing
           | complexity rises exponential with increasing iterations which
           | causes the tab to freeze..
           | 
           | EDIT: Fix typo and improve iteration explaination
        
         | tarr11 wrote:
         | There is a cool algorithm called space colonization that can do
         | a lot of what l-systems do (such as tree modeling). Pretty
         | straightforward to implement and has some nice results.
         | 
         | http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/colonization.egwnp2007.l...
        
           | abelaer wrote:
           | For the curious: I've written a basic space colonisation
           | algorithm to simulate leaf venation patterns in a browser
           | here: https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1211361
           | 
           | (note: I wrote this many years ago and it's horribly
           | inefficient, I don't even dare to look at the code anymore,
           | but it's on that same page)
        
       | DonHopkins wrote:
       | Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Relish the delightful
       | Chicago accent and attitude of Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't,
       | presenting The Filthiest Flower in All the Land, Clitoria:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCyzQMFb60Y&ab_channel=Crime...
       | 
       | All his stuff is just as fascinating, entertaining, and
       | educational -- check out his channel! His videos about
       | carnivorous plants are a trip, too. The money shot and pigmy
       | assed sundew starts at 4:20:
       | 
       | (#182) A Strange Carnivore Called Cephalotus folicularis
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBvntuxAL-Q&ab_channel=Crime...
       | 
       | A botanical tour of beautiful West Oakland, California, across
       | the train tracks and under the superhighways:
       | 
       | (#195) The Plant Ecology of Concrete, Garbage and Urine -
       | Botanizing A Toilet
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35qF2hEefXg&ab_channel=Crime...
       | 
       | >WARNING : THIS EPISODE SHOWS IMAGES THAT ARE AN UTTER BUMMER.
       | Thin-skinned, easily-upset viewers will want to pass.
       | 
       | >Botanizing a Toilet :
       | 
       | >The bleak barren wasteland of neglected urban infrastructure
       | serves as an example of an ecological phenomenon known as
       | "primary succession", however the cast includes a patchwork of
       | non-native species from all over the globe. What plant species
       | are able to thrive amidst the homeless camps, human bleakness
       | (wealth disparity 101), garbage and concrete? Join CPBBD as we
       | explore the ecology of garbage, concrete and urine.
       | 
       | The Ethnomycology of Ugly Landscaping:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRgY8fZNv4&ab_channel=Crime...
       | 
       | >Join us as we explore the affinity that a species of
       | psychoactive mushroom seems to have for the mulch beds of ugly
       | landscaping in otherwise bleak metropolitan settings such as
       | luxury condominiums, banks, strip malls, traffic medians, etc.
        
         | cjhveal wrote:
         | I have to second this recommendation and add my favorite
         | video[0] of his, "Kick Me In The Asteraceae, with Helianthus
         | annuus," about sunflowers. It's truly an informative and down
         | to earth take on what can be a very stuffy and jargon-dense
         | subject.
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44YgtQraXY
        
       | cjhveal wrote:
       | L-systems are a lot of fun. When messing around with pen plotters
       | a few years ago with a friend, we implemented an L-system driven
       | plotter and one of the more interesting programs we found to run
       | on it was an aperiodic Penrose tiling. We ended up throwing a
       | party with the plotter going and art supplies so folks could grab
       | a copy and color them in. Some videos below of the plotter in
       | action.
       | 
       | https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfp0hATFzfm/?taken-by=dannysaza
       | 
       | https://www.instagram.com/p/BgS4MkeDEt0/?taken-by=dannysaza
        
       | smusamashah wrote:
       | Stochastic rules allow very natural looking trees. Most L-System
       | implementations don't allow choosing rules with probability.
       | 
       | I have been able to make somewhat realistic looking trees so far.
       | http://xosh.org/Stochastic-L-System/ (WIP)
       | 
       | I am hoping to make many different kind of trees/plants. Can make
       | palm tree with it. Haven't figured out pine tree yet
        
         | kragen wrote:
         | There are some nice pines in
         | http://marief.soler.free.fr/Monsite/lsystem0_en_css.htm and
         | http://paulbourke.net/fractals/lsys/.
        
       | TrueDuality wrote:
       | Huzzah! I was looking for algorithms that organically grow meshes
       | last week and couldn't find anything past the flood of generating
       | approximate trees for games. This is a great resource.
        
       | rmnclmnt wrote:
       | I remember having Prof. PRUSINKIEWICZ at the UofC giving lectures
       | about physical modeling and animation: one of the most passionate
       | and interesting course I have attended!
        
         | slavik81 wrote:
         | I enjoyed his computer graphics course so much that I did a
         | master's under his supervision.
        
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