Generative Systems: Fruit Flies

 

2013 

Simulated the aerodynamics of fruit flies and made the agents evolve to better navigate their environment and also generate drawings by tracking their flight behavior and visualizing flight trails. Developed in Lua. 

 

.. and there was one .. 

.. and there was one .. (v.2)

.. and there were many .. 

optimizing algorithm (slow) 

optimizing algorithm (fast) 

 

visualizing flight behavior & trails

 

Future Improvement & Expansion Possibilities: 

  • Smarter flying mechanism: for instance, using retina size or a combined post radius and field to recognize clusters of posts and/or overlapping ones better and successfully saccade from or land on them

  • Smarter evolution: e.g. measuring fitness by averaging all landing attempts instead of the very last one, and also keeping track of whenever they fly through a post or collide with their neighbors 

  • Moving posts: have agents interact with moving obstacles instead of static ones

  • More interactivity: add more interactive elements to make the system more dynamic and engaging for the viewer 

  • Fly swatters: add a different type of agents to interact with the flies, or have the viewers be the fly swatters with the mouse 

  • Add sound: trigger sounds with their movement and create a soundscape

Research, ArtSung JResearch