For additional information, see the following poster (large image):
Evolutionary processes are responsible for the wide variety of organic forms seen in the natural world. The Clades application belongs to the field of interactive evolutionary computation. In this field, a human designer creates forms by guiding evolutionary processes. This guidance can be realized using very simple interfaces, which puts applications like Clades in the hands of a broad class of users.
In Clades, the individual plants are generated using L-systems. Evolution of L-systems is particularly appealing due to analogies that can be drawn between genetic code (DNA) and L-system productions. Several attempts to evolve L-system-based models have been devised in the past. This was done by various authors using the standard operations of genetic algorithms — mutations and crossover — to modify the productions.
The algorithm that powers Clades attempts to improve on previous results by considering a different set of operations — duplication and diversification — as the basis of L-system evolution instead. These operations reflect the widely accepted theory of evolution of genetic material, first popularized by Susumo Ohno in his book “Evolution by gene duplication” (1970).
According to this theory, duplication of genetic content enables the smooth transitions from less complex to more complex phenotypes by creating redundant genetic material that is gradually modified. Clades presents an interactive evolutionary modelling system in which the genetic algorithm is inspired by this aspect of the theory in particular.
For additional information, see the following poster (large image):