L-system

L-system trees form realistic models of natural patterns

An L-system or Lindenmayer system is a parallel rewriting system and a type of formal grammar. An L-system consists of an alphabet of symbols that can be used to make strings, a collection of production rules that expand each symbol into some larger string of symbols, an initial "axiom" string from which to begin construction, and a mechanism for translating the generated strings into geometric structures. L-systems were introduced and developed in 1968 by Aristid Lindenmayer, a Hungarian theoretical biologist and botanist at the University of Utrecht.[1] Lindenmayer used L-systems to describe the behaviour of plant cells and to model the growth processes of plant development. L-systems have also been used to model the morphology of a variety of organisms[2] and can be used to generate self-similar fractals.

  1. ^ Lindenmayer, Aristid (March 1968). "Mathematical models for cellular interactions in development II. Simple and branching filaments with two-sided inputs". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 18 (3): 300–315. Bibcode:1968JThBi..18..300L. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(68)90080-5. ISSN 0022-5193. PMID 5659072.
  2. ^ Grzegorz Rozenberg and Arto Salomaa. The mathematical theory of L systems (Academic Press, New York, 1980). ISBN 0-12-597140-0