These carefully-patterned rock arrangements look like something out of a meditation garden, or environmental art. But they are actually the product of simple computer algorithms expressed through a 3D program.
Writes artist Giuseppe Randazzo:
This project has started from a search for a 3d-objects optimal packing algorithm over a surface, but evolved in something rather different. I love the work by Richard Long, the way he fills lonely landscapes with archaic stones patterns.
My version is a poor and lazy version of that heroic approach. The virtual stones created by several fractal subdivision strategies, find their proper position within the circle, with a trial and error hierarchical algorithm. A mix of attractors and scalar fields (some with Perlin noise) drives the density and size of the stones. The code is a C++ console application that outputs a OBJ 3d file.
There is a kind of natural unnatural beauty to these images, which suggest one way that humans and machines share an aesthetic.
You can see more of Randazzo’s work on his website. Spotted on Illusion 360!
