I simulated mycelial growth using a modified RRT for my Masters. The algorithm has some very powerful properties. It is probabilistically complete over any number of dimensions. It is biased to explore unexplored regions first. It allieviates the "curse of dimensionality" by not needing to map out the configuration space or collision zones explicitly. And it makes shapes that echo mycelium, neurons, and galaxies.
The most useful application I saw published was its use for protein folding simulations. Not sure how far they ended up going with this.
One exciting paper showed path finding for a theoretical robot with 1000 degrees of freedom in its movement.
Was there any more progress or work done on this concept since '98?
Tons, and it seems like it's still an actively researched topic.
Could you recommended any articles for further reading?