Labs / Computer Science
L-System Fractals
An L-system starts from a short string (the axiom) and rewrites every symbol using production rules, over and over. A turtle then reads the result: F and G draw, + and - turn, and [ ] branch. Pick a preset and watch it grow, then edit the rules to see what you can make.
length 0segments 0depth 0
What to try
- Nudge the depth slider up one step at a time on the Koch Snowflake — how does the string length grow, roughly ×4 each time?
- The whole plant is one rule applied to itself. Change the angle from 25° to 90° — is it still recognizably a plant?
- The Dragon curve never crosses itself. Can you spot where one bend becomes two as depth increases?
- In the Rules box, swap a + for a -. Which shapes are mirror-symmetric enough that it barely changes them?
- Write your own: try axiom F with rule F->F+F-F. What angle turns it into a tidy zig-zag versus a tangled knot?