Crossing fractal using principles from genetic algorithm.

live version

Every once in a while someone asks me about the tree on the background of my homepage, this project tries to tell a little bit about it.

Back in college I got really interested in fractals and didn't took me long enough to find Keith Peters's book - Playing with chaos. I bought the e-book and fell in love with it right away. Not also it explains a lot of fractals, it does so using JavaScript and Canvas, two things I really love. I still learn a lot from that book. Anyway, about the tree: as soon as I saw that beautiful siluete of a tree forming with a couple of rules, I decided to use it on my homepage. If you wanna know more about fractals I highly suggest you to buy the e-book aswell.

Parent A

Parent B

Since I cannot create my own rules, I took the rules I used to create the tree and a rule to create a leaf and decided to cross them, as you'd do with a plant if you wanna make a new specie. So, every time you click / touch the screen, a new fractal emerge from that crossing.

This project has taken an expected turn and I'll update the README later. For now, here's how its working:

On the left you have 9 fractals generated from the crossing of the two parents on the left. You can click to select / deselect a fractal you like. When you click evolve, the fractal(s) you selected will become a parent for the next generation, having a chance of being selected to the next crossing.

I have pushed a feature where you can view, adjust the zoom and the resolution of the selected fractals, learn more about it here