3D printed nylon from a volumetric agent based simulation
2014
Cardiac is a code based volumetric agent simulation, using chemotaxis as the organizing principle. Chemotaxis is the movement of organisms that seek out nutrients, heat, or any other gradient in their environment. In this case the agents in the simulation seek food in the environment, avoid one another, and attack other agents with less resources than themselves. As the agents affect their environment and one another, boundaries between the agents are made into surfaces. The animations show this behavior in an empty space.
This system was then given a 3D medical imaging scan of a human heart. Different densities in the heart structure were represented as nutrients for the agents to seek out. As the agents moved through space, their behavior distorted and reshaped the heart. The resulting form is somewhere between human and bacterial, between an evolved grown organ and a destructive and highly competitive artificial life simulation.
