» Lindenmayer Systems , March 20th, 2003
An L-system or Lindenmayer system is a formal grammar (a set of rules and symbols) most famously used to model the growth processes of plant development, though able to model the morphology of a variety of organisms. L-systems can also be used to generate self-similar fractals such as iterated function systems. L-systems were introduced and developed in 1968 by the Hungarian theoretical biologist and botanist from the University of Utrecht, Aristid Lindenmayer (1925–1989).
Branden Hall and myself spent way too much time working with programs we wrote, that used vectors to draw L-Systems. Where it got interesting for me is when I starting hacking Branden’s base system to start randomly generating some of the rule sets for drawing. These images represent a few vector based outputs from my random rule sets. Working with this accidental process was fascinating and produced many sleepless nights.
A simplified version of the program also made great randomly generated logos.
Colors :
[...] Lindenmayer Systems at Joshuadavis.com [...]
[...] A lot has been done with LSystems beyond line drawings. Joshua Davis’ has developed a custom-built vector generation engine that uses L-Systems, and I suspect the rich graphics on his experimental site once-upon-a-forest.com are similarly based. There is post about it on his blog. L-Systems have also been used to feed musical compositions. Geraldine Sarmiento has made some interesting such pieces. [...]
There are many fine examples of system L in music, the Ligeti piano etudes for one, even if the composer denied the usage of software.