Modeling-Nature-Interactions

Here I will store Pov-Ray scripts and -approaches for modeling structures with interacting elements. I will look at three different kinds of interactions: (1) Interactions modifying the location and/or orientation of elements, (2) interactions modifying the shape of elements and (3) interactions modifying the texture (colour) of elements. Let's start with a simple example for (1). Elements are only displayed when they are inside a given larger elment. This kind of interactions can be easily modeled in Pov-Ray using the inside-funktion - here are a few examples. Using the inside function it is also possible to place objects on the surface of a large object by first spreading them around the object, and then making them move towards the object until they reach the surface. The next form of interactions refers to the orientation of a given object. In the next examples I will show how to orientate the objects according to the normal of the surface of the larger object. (In this example the large object is a virus and the small particles are viral proteins. There are also cases where one element determines location (and eventually orientation of a subsequent element. Worms (for example) can be modeled this way in a stepwise process. By modifying the shape of individual elements different kinds of worms are possible: But also Anabaena filaments can be modeled by stepwise addition of elements to a growing chain. Below I will show you a few examples, where elements modify each others shape. We start with soap bubbles (simple models for cells) and end with plant cells. Cellular automata basically are elements where interactions modify the texture of other elements. I did not go very far in this field. Since it is an important field, however, I wanted to include at least one example. The two following pictures are frames from such interactions. Let the first frame be a random distribution of 1 (orange colour) and 0 (blue colour). In the subsequent frame I have applied the rule that 1 is only kept for fields surrounded by at least 3 orange elements. In the Pov-Ray file added here you can do as many steps using this rule as you want. Unfortunately it is not a very interesting rule resulting in disappearance of the the orange elements after some time. Feel free to play around with other rules!