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ADDITIVE GROWING

It becomes important to look at growth from a perspective which doesn’t take more to make more.

Ford Foundation

Graduation Thesis Project

Various algorithms were employed to digitally grow forms based on various parameters. These have interesting properties such as maximizing surface area or growing directionally. These digital forms were then 3D printed to realize them.

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Digital Growing

Various software were combined together to achieve the final products. Some were hacked or used in ways they were not intended to be used while some were created from scratch. One example is where a physarum simulation was run and each frame was stacked together to create the 3D form that was then printed.

Feedback loops create complex regenerative patterns which are resilient and in a state of dynamic equillibrium.

Physarum Simulation

The most fascinating example of how aggregation brings about complex behavior is in ant or physarum simulations. Physarum is a single-celled organism that is like a slime mold. It shows remarkable intelligence in foraging behavior and even memory. It follows very simple rules which bring about complex intelligence without having a brain or nervous system.

Aggregating Layers

Another way of looking at the physarum simulations is mapping the dimension of time to a dimension of space. It could be looked at as an aggregation of layers of the simulation as well. The simulation could be run to go from dense holes to sparse holes. Be bound by any shape. Be allowed to grow with constraints etc. The nature of aggregation takes care of creating the cross-sections which is actually naturally grown. I also figured out a way of converting them to a 3d-printable format and 3d printing the structures. The complexity actually materializes. It becomes more apparent when seen through light. They seem to resemble cross-sections of bone structures. The prints have come out to be quite strong with less material used as well.

Differential Growth

For this algorithm, we start with a 3d base shape. The vertices on this shape are what form the individual nodes and on whom we apply simple rules. 

 

1) Have each node go away from the other

2) Reduce the curvature of the shape at each point

3) If the area of a certain face is above a threshold, divide the face

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