Evolutionary Art and Design

James McDermott

The natural process of Darwinian evolution inspires a field of computer science research called "evolutionary computation". In this field, researchers define an abstract version of DNA, and breed populations of abstract organisms. In this project, the user controls a population of graphical designs, selecting preferred designs and discarding bad ones. The best in each population are then mated together and mutated by the underlying algorithm to produce a new population of offspring designs. Gradually, the population explores
the search space and finds new and interesting designs.The techniques developed in this outreach side project have been applied to problems in many different domains, from data mining, engineering, and finance, to architectural design, music and graphics.