Show HN: Generative art with ant colony optimization algorithms

[adyer07]

http://amydyer.art/wp/index.php/2020/01/01/drawing-with-ants-generative-art-with-ant-colony-optimization-algorithms/

[lupetrucci]

I've worked on a similar topic during my Msc Thesis. It was an application to help evolve parameters of ant colonies using evolutionary computation to render non photorealistic artworks.

Here's a sample of it running: https://vimeo.com/93903230

Here's the link to he project: https://cdv.dei.uc.pt/photogrowth-ant-painting/

[adyer07 → lupetrucci]

Thank you for the link, this is fantastic! I love the complex interwoven nature of the patterns.

[triclops200]

This is a similar topic to the first paper I worked on that got published! We built a system that allowed ants to do compass straightedge construction. Paper link is here: https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/papers/alife16-geometers.pdf

[adyer07]

Thanks for reading! I’m particularly interested in hearing how a technical audience responds to art like this. Did it resonate for you?

[undershirt → adyer07]

The first one looks like pictures of my eye taken after my doctor scans it with a light (I suppose that's just an angiogram you mentioned later). Those rasters were my favorite, and I love the artful clarity of complexity you achieved. I came away appreciating emergence a bit more. Interesting how the complexity resisted the contrivance during attempts to press it into shapes! (subscribed to your newsletter)

[adyer07 → undershirt]

Thank you! I do wonder why the resemblance to veins is so strong. There must be something interesting and emergent going on there, too.

[reroute1 → undershirt]

That's exactly what I was thinking! Blood vessels and capillaries. Cool project.

[zadkey → adyer07]

I most resonated with the "Objects in a git object tree, graphed by ants."

This felt very real or close to real for me.

[adyer07 → zadkey]

Yeah, I still feel like there's a lot unexplored there. Abstract code visualization seems like it would be an interesting project in its own right.

[jgon → adyer07]

I really enjoyed it and it motivated me to explore some of these techniques in my own projects!

[GaryNumanVevo]

This is some of the most visually stunning stuff I've seen in a while. Excellent job!

[twoquestions]

Good stuff! For some reason you just don't see a lot of machine guided/generated art like this out there, and that's a shame.

[bdr → twoquestions]

There’s a lot of it happening, it just doesn’t get the most attention. If you’re in NYC there’s a great exhibition on now that includes generative art: https://sfpc.io/sevenyears/

[zadkey]

This is really cool. Do you have some code that you are willing to showcase?

[adyer07 → zadkey]

Certainly - you can look at the source for the p5.js port here, which is basically a line-by-line port of the original processing3 simulation: https://github.com/oxling/p5js_ants

The other parts, the rasterization and vectorization, I haven't cleaned up to the point where the source isn't terribly embarrassing! One of the weird things about this project was the code became more of a means to an end than an artifact in itself, so it's littered with a lot of dead experiments, swear words, and so on.

[cube2222]

It seems to be dead: "Error establishing a database connection"

[sulZ → cube2222]

I'm getting the same. Hopefully it will be fixed when I check back again later.

[adyer07 → sulZ]

OK, should be back up.

[adyer07 → sulZ]

Shoot! On it.

[s9w]

I don't know anything about web hosting, but how come HN kills pages so quickly? This has 33 upvotes right now - even when I assume that translates into 1000times the clicks - 33k of anything don't seem that much to my naive assumptions. Is web hosting that hard?

[flir → s9w]

It might have gone over a bandwidth threshold.

[adyer07 → flir]

Server ran out of memory, apparently - back up now, with more swap space on the server :)