Differential Growth for Blender

Latest release · Please see the orginal blog post for a formal introduction.

Differential growth is a generative algorithm inspired by the growth occurring in living organisms such as lichens, algae, poriferae, corals and other kinds of organic forms.

Installation

1. Download a zip file from Releases
2. Install the addon in Blender by going to Edit > Preferences > Addons > Install

Important notes

• The algorithm is "destructive" (i.e. it will modify the mesh in-place). It is recommended to set the Undo Steps to maximum (Preferences > System > Undo Steps) to be able to revert to previous results.

• Some combination of parameters may result in combinatorial explosion causing Blender to hang. It is recommended to save often.

Development

It can be painful to develop in Blender's text editor.

One good solution is to symlink the repo to the Blender's addon location, then develop using your favorite editor.

Then use F3 -> Reload Scripts every time the change is made.

Mac/Linux

Locate the addons directory, then replace ADDONS_DIR in symlink.sh and run it.

Windows

Run cmd.exe as Administrator (Start menu, search 'cmd', right click).

Then run (correct the paths as necessary):

mklink /D "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Blender\2.93\scripts\addons\diffgrow" "C:\Users\boris\3d\blender\diffgrowth"

Credits

This work is heavily inspired by the work of others. Here's a non-exhaustive list of resources used in creation of this addon:

• Anders Hoff · inconvergent.net
• Floraform by Nervous System
• Kaspar Ravel Blog
• Jason Webb 2D differential growth
• Sheltron's amazing collection of math art

License

Differential Growth Addon uses Blender License.

Free to Use. Free to Change. Free to Share. Free to Sell Your Work.