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This was originally a screensaver I wrote for my mother’s birthday in VB6. This version is written in Processing, but you don’t need to know that to enjoy it.
People always ask me if it’s random to which I never am completely sure how to answer. The answer is that all the apparent randomness is based on pseudo-random numbers generated by Java. But that isn’t the end of the story either. Some “trees” still seem to grow differently than others… The reason is that every time a new tree is started it gets a new, “random” set of parameters such as what color it is, how bendy it is, how fast it grows and how often it sprouts new branches. When the root of the tree branches these parameters are then passed to it’s ‘child’ but they aren’t copied exactly, only approximately so the tree “evolves” as is grows.