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Fractals Made from Shape Languages and Fancy Geometry

80 points by swayvil ↗ HN
The shape languages are called "Shape Grammars"

The fancy geometry is called "Kisrhombille Tessellation"

You make languages out of shapes and then the shapes interact to create complex shapes, the whole process guided by code.

They're fractals. Infinite. And as customizable as code. It's a geometry programming technology.

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Here's an overview of the geometry.

https://github.com/johnalexandergreene/Geom_Kisrhombille/blob/master/README.md

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Here's a tool for making your own custom grammars (it's easy) and looking at pretty pictures.

https://github.com/johnalexandergreene/Forsythia/tree/master/app/grammarEditor

There's a README there. It provides a little overview and explains the UI. There's also a video walkthrough that shows you how to make a simple grammar.

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Here's the main project. Much pictures and videos. Fractal dive videos too.

http://www.fleen.org/

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Peruse the github repo for various demos and stuff.

16 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 38.4 ms ] thread
Toast_
Cool project! I bet these would make great styles for deep dream images.
ttoinou
Did you post this on fractalforums.com ?
swayvil
ya, a couple years ago.
ttoinou
Well your work looks great congrats :-) . This gives me a lot of ideas
swayvil
On second thought, no. I was thinking the patterns themselves. No, I have not posted the latest docs stuff. I shall immediately.
mathgenius
You might like Conway's book "The Symmetries of things."
swayvil
thanks.

I am a fan of his work.

theoh
Looking at wikipedia's info on a certain kisrhombille tiling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-6_kisrhombille

I think this is relevant https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/the-worl...

swayvil
Nice.

I was experimenting for a long time till I decided that kisrhombille was the way to go. You can do a lot with it.

And it is smooth scaling, like square and equilateral triangle tessellation. I mean you can describe the same shape with an arbitrary range of resolutions (unlike with hexagons).

xemoka
I've followed you on /r/generative for a while, this produces some really cool output. I've been interested in getting more into generative art, I just always get lost trying to find a way in.
chillingeffect
wow if you get this [1] and run it like this: java -jar FleenForsythiaGrammarEditor_V2017_04_22.jar you can actually edit models with the grammar and plot them in java on a local machine. A bit unintuitive at first grab, but definitely looks worth getting to understand because it makes brilliant patterns suggesting all kinds of structures...

and many more images here: http://www.fleen.org/image_gallery/index.php

and a short artpiece made with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xoa3...

[1] https://github.com/johnalexandergreene/Forsythia/raw/master/...

swayvil
holy shit that's awesome!

good music too