My Process
This is genetic art. It is similar to or the same as evolutionary art, algorithmic art, or organic art. A genetic art image is defined using an equation or program that computes the color of each pixel (dot) in the image. The equation and its parameters are chosen randomly. The artist then chooses the best random images. These equations defining the best images are then used as parents and mutated and crossed over to create a new batch of child images. In this way the images tend to go from simple to complex and from less to more pleasing over time.
I originally wrote this program as a diversion during grad school in 1998. The images displayed in this gallery are descendents of those 1998 originals. Many have descended hundreds of generations. I've probably looked through a million images over the last decade to evolve the ones in my gallery.
The way the program works is it randomly generates three mathematical functions of x and y (such as 5 + cos(2.3 * sqrt(y + 1.1) - x)) and converts them into a picture. There are several ways of converting the three expressions to a picture. In the program available here this conversion is done by evaluating the expressions with different values of x and y for each pixel in the image and converting the resulting three numbers into the color at pixel x,y. I randomly choose one of six different ways to convert the numbers to a color. The simplest is to use the numbers as the amount of red, green, and blue primary colors that combine to form the color. Others apply color transforms including YCrCb or HSV. The last way to convert the three numbers into a color is to ignore two numbers and use the third as an index into a genetically evolved color palette.
Genetic programming follows Sturgeon's Law - "Ninety percent of everything is crud," so this randomly generated expression will probably be boring and ugly. So I compensate for the probability of ugliness by generating lots of pictures, some of which will be interesting. The program displays an array of images and the artist can mix and match these images to get better ones. This is where the genetics comes in. Think of the images as an evolving population, whose fitness for survival is the image's appeal to the artist. The artist can enter a numerical score according to how much they like each child image, or can click on the most appealing images to select them as parents of succeeding generations. Then when the artist has selected all desirable children, the undesirable ones are replaced with a new generation of children. The new images are either randomly generated or are a mutation of one, or a cross between two existing images that have been designated as parents.
The population gradually evolves into more and more pleasing pictures. The artist will often choose a particular motif that pleases them and breed it over and over trying dozens of variations and crossing it with everything that looks interesting.
Download the Program
You can try my genetic art program. This is a Windows program. The UI isn't the best, but it's ok. The program comes with some documentation and with example genetic material to get you started.
About the Artist
David McAllister has been programming computers for nearly thirty years, since the age of nine. Computer Graphics has been his focus since the end of high school when David received his first job in the industry testing 3D APIs at Evans and Sutherland. In 2002 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the number one ranked graduate program in computer graphics.
David has been at Nvidia Corp. as a graphics chip architect then as a research scientist for over nine years and does the genetic art on the side. Why are artist bios always written in the third person?
I use Zazzle.com to make prints, cards, and apparel of my work. Click here to browse my products. If you don't see the picture you want available there, or if you want a higher resolution copy for making a larger print, please let me know.
