Generating plants with gene expression programming

Abstract

The simulated evolution of botanical trees and other plants is explored in this paper. We present a model to simplify the creation of plants by following the genotype/phenotype approach of Gene Expression Programming to generate L-Systems. Our model describes a specific organism (a plant) with a genotype that can be expressed as an L-System. This L-System, and subsequently it's interpreted graphical image, forms the phenotype, and is used to assess the fitness of the organism. The human eye is used as a fitness function, and a user assigns fitness ratings to the organisms in a population based on the aesthetic value of the images. The user is able to create a plant without knowledge of the underlying algorithms or specific botanical knowledge.