The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants [pdf]

I really enjoyed reading the latter last year, because it does a great job slowly building up. By the end, I felt like I didn't just understand the models, but also how the author found them. I can recognize these patterns in nature, and figure out how they were generated.

I spent some time last year implementing all the models described in the book in JS: https://kaesve.nl/projects/shells .

I have had the book for years but recently started properly going through it with F# inside a Polyglot Notebook. I have all the 2D diagrams drawn up until the book starts with the stochastic drawings, which I'll tackle next. F# makes it so nice to build an embedded DSL for the L-systems and then the turtle interpretation of them.

    // Figure 1.9 (d)
    let kochD =
        { Alphabet = ['F'; 'f'; '+'; '-']
          Axiom = "F-F-F-F"
          Productions =
            [ 'F' => "FF-F--F-F" ] }

    drawTurtleSystem 4 defaultTurtle kochD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Growth_and_Form (1917)

in the pdf:

Thus, self-similarity in plants is a result of developmental processes. Growth and form By emphasizing the relationship between growth and form, this book follows a long tradition in biology. D’Arcy Thompson [143] traces its origins to the late seventeenth century, and comments: Organic form itself is found, mathematically speaking, to be a function of time.... We might call the form of an organism an event in space-time, and not merely a configuration in space.