Introduction
Welcome to the world of Evolving Art. A world brought to life
by the melding of evolutionary concepts, computer graphics,
and art. In this walk along the boundary of art and science,
you will marvel at the power of evolution as it fires your
imagination with pleasing manifestations of color and symmetry.
introduction
Turtle Logo
Turtle Logo is a programming language that was commonly used as a
tool for learning computer graphics. Popularized in the 1980's,
turtle logo is easy to understand because of its use of entirely
relative instructions. Relative instructions means that the
instruction set involves commands like "move forward 5 units",
or "turn left 90 degrees". Compared to dealing with a coordinate
space and commands like "move to 10, 10", "rotate -90 degrees",
and transformation matrices, relative instructions make life
much easier for programmers who are unfamiliar with computer
graphics.
Genetic Programming
Genetic Programming is a concept that mimics the natural
selection process, commonly referred to as evolution, to
"evolve" programs that produce a desired result. Most of
the practical applications of genetic programming involve
optimization, although there are many varied applications
of genetic programming.
Evolved Turtle Logo
Evolved Logo is a combination of genetic programming and
turtle logo. A population of turtle programs is randomly
generated. Each turtle program draws a picture. You then
select the turtles you consider most "fit", or desirable.
The selected turtles will then be combined genetically in
a fashion similar to nature, and a new population of turtles
will be created. The selection/reproduction cycle is then
repeated to evolve turtles that meet your fitness criteria.
Since most people tend to bring a degree of an artistic
eye to their selection process, the evolution of most
populations moves along a vector that results in stunning
images that sometimes boggle the intellect. Science becomes
art in a very profound way.