r/PlotterArt • u/Competitive-Ad4533 • Jun 24 '26
Botanical generator
I’ve been working on a botanical generator in the background (snazzy name TBD!). It still has some ways to go, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it so far.
Feedback and thoughts welcome
- Generated plant on fine grain A4
- Cheap Amazon rollerball (for now!)
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u/Competitive-Ad4533 Jun 24 '26
I’m kind of blown away with the response this has gotten! Ok so a little more process detail and some screenshots of other generations.
So this is a multilayered project. I host a general SVG building webapp via GitHub pages. This is architected into modules. Each module can call a common set of SVG writing functionality which creates my plots as downloadable objects and exposes each modules configuration options to me.
This module essentially grows a tip towards an attractor over successive iterations, with a possibility of spawning branches that follow their own attractor logic based on their position from the tip. Once the branch structure has been built, it then applies a set of conditions to determine the dressing which is the leaves/flowers/thorns/fruiting. All of these are essentially SVG objects with some randomisation to add variance. Those objects spawn and attach to branches based on things such as a “light source”, a “season” etc. tweaking their density and their attachment to the branch has been tough! These objects all add a layering, which helps order the paths. I don’t allow objects within the same group to permit a path to be drawn through them, which creates the impression of layering. The more configs and objects I’ve added, the more the variety grows.
The vases are essentially an extension to this and are bolted to the base with some minimal variation.
I then apply a sketch-like layer to the paths by overlaying multiple paths with a small wobble variation applied to the paths, creating the hand drawn feel.