Generating Crack Patterns on Planar Geometry by L-system

An empirical approach for generation of crack patterns on planar geometry is considered in this study. The L-system is used to define growing process of crack patterns. The L-system produces a sequence of letters and it is translated as visual representation by the turtle graphics concept. In order to investigate what kind of grammar can be suitable to generate realistic crack patterns, an WebGL application has been developed. The developed application can generate variety of crack patterns. Through experiments, we discovered several grammars which generates realistic crack patterns. The final crack patterns are often difficult to predict, but it is possible to control the number of branches and geometry of fragments with an appropriate selection of grammar. Our approach provides a possibility toward an intuitive control of crack propagation process and final crack geometry.