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PlantStudio Kurtz-Fernhout Software
Developers of custom software and educational simulations.
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PlantStudio
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Introduction
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Arranging
Breeding
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How it works
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Breeding plants using the breeder

Breeding creates new offspring plants from parents using random variation. About 150 of the over 200 parameters that make up a plant are numerical values. We realized early on that it might be fun to introduce random variation into these numerical parameters and see what happens. The result is a sort of pseudo-evolutionary process. In each breeding generation you can select the most interesting plant, then breed it further to produce strange, beautiful, or imaginative plants. The breeder isn't concerned much with botanical accuracy, but it produces some pretty amazing-looking plants.

Breeding works by
gif/plantstudio00090000.gif Mutation
: Each parameter in a breeding offspring is randomly selected from a normal (bell-shaped) distribution around the mean parent value (from one or two parents). The higher the mutation, the greater the standard deviation of the normal distribution, so the higher the variation.
gif/plantstudio00090000.gif Blending: The mean of the mutation distribution is either the parameter value from one parent, or a weighted mean from two parents. You can combine the two parents in any weighting combination.

IMPORTANT: The plants in the breeder are NOT saved with the plant file and are lost when you leave the program. If you want to save a breeder plant, drag or copy it to the main window and save the plant file.

Tasks:

gif/chiclet.gif Breeding from one parent

gif/chiclet.gif Breeding from two parents

gif/chiclet.gif Taking a breeder plant out of the breeder

gif/chiclet.gif Replacing breeder plants

gif/chiclet.gif Randomizing breeder plants

gif/chiclet.gif Deleting breeder generations

gif/chiclet.gif Changing the age of breeder plants

gif/chiclet.gif Changing the size of the breeder

See also:

Changing breeding options

Dragging plants

Cutting, copying, and pasting plants

Undoing and redoing

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Updated: March 10, 1999. Questions/comments on site to webmaster@kurtz-fernhout.com.
Copyright © 1998, 1999 Paul D. Fernhout & Cynthia F. Kurtz.