Space Colonization

Space colonization is an algorithm simulating growth of plants. This project is an ongoing exploration of aethetics possible to achive using that method. The algorithm can be explained in 6 simple steps:

1. Populate possible growth space with growth hormons.
2. For each hormone find the nearest bud. 
3. Grow each bud towards it's neighbor hormons. If there is none, kill the bud.
4. If a hormon is too close to a bud, remove it.
5. With every growth branch the buds with some probability.
6. Repeat until all hormons are consumed or all buds are dead.

By manipulating parameters like bud's field of view, branching probability and density of the growth hormons you can achieve some really amazing results. Recently Nervous System posted an animation explaining similar process.

My first implementation was done in Cinder and led to the Crystal Infection project.

Recently I've been playing with more subtle colors in Plask.

This algorithm gives some interesting possiblities when it comes to incorporating designs in the page layout. Here is HTML5/Canvas prototype that is aware of the content of the website.

More on Flickr.