Biohavior

A simple GUI

As we build the theory of the Blind Watchmaker and implement it in our Smart-MaaS system it is important that we consider the user and their role.

As we know from our Design Genes Series, we have created ‘design genes’ that encode the genotype of an organism. These genes are stored in a ‘seed’ to ‘plant’ and develop in the environment. It is our aim, that with a simple Graphical User Interface (GUI), the user can explore and edit the genes in the seed, plant it in the environment, set a goal and allow the system to grow the organism.

An example

Figures 1-3 shows a simple GUI where the user enters data required for development.

Figure 1: GUI input

This includes:

Seed Location

The location where the seed will be planted in the environment, Figure 2. This is a reference for the computer aided modelling system, which builds the 3D representation of the organism – i.e. at the origin this would be (0,0,0), shown.

Design Genes

The design genes – any number of genes can be input here to create the genome. In Figure 2 we can see three genes for cell growth in height along x,y,z and a fourth for growth in x. There is a cross-section attribute gene with a circle ‘value’, a length gene of 5 and a radius of 1.

Figure 2: Seed and gene inputs

Goals

Goal(s) – Figure 3 shows a goal of height 13. This means growth of the organism, in x, y, and z will continue until a height of at least 13 (in z) is achieved.

Figure 3: Goal input

The resulting organism from this user-defined seed-goal input can be displayed and interrogated using CADfix.

Figure 4: 3D visualisation of the organism

The creation of a simple GUI like this, allows the user to quick and efficient exploration of the design genes and goals without needing to navigate or understand the underlying program.

In future, this cycle of editing, growing and visualisation could be automated and handled by algorithms and batch processing so a larger number of parameters can be explored in a more efficient way. This would help us achieve emergence of designs – one of our project’s big challenges!