Digital Morphogenesis

Treat form as the outcome of a process rather than a shape drawn directly. Build the smallest local mechanism that can plausibly produce the requested global structure, then explore and measure its behavior.

Start with the intent

Establish:

• the target phenomenon or visual qualities;
• whether the model is an artistic analogy, a design generator, or an explanatory scientific model;
• the required output: image, animation, mesh, toolpath, interactive system, or measurements;
• dimensionality, scale, runtime, determinism, and fabrication constraints;
• which global qualities matter: branching, density, porosity, connectivity, symmetry, coverage, motion, or robustness.

Do not claim biological fidelity from visual resemblance alone. For explanatory models, tie each rule and parameter to evidence and define validation criteria before tuning.

Choose a model family

Read references/model-selection.md before selecting or combining methods.