What's with the shells?

The shell motif first started when I found George R. McGhee Jr's seminal work “Theoretical Morphology” abandoned in a hallway at CMU.

It presents a fascinating look into a mathematical perspective behind how the real and speculative models of organism growth.

I was particularly struck by how shell morph as you tweak the parameters behind the model behind their construction. Building off of the formula described as well as making my own tweaks from my own experimentation and research, the first shell generator was born in Processing.

From the early days in Processing to P5.js and Javacript and finally to SVGs and Typescript. This tool has come a long way.

Feel free to play around and download your very own shell!

a: b: d:

Primary

r: g: b:

Secondary

r: g: b:

* The parameters a, b, d are related to shell growth. "a" is related to shell size. "b" is related to growth rate. "d" is related to cross-section dimension. Shell section colors are interpolated between the selected primary and secondary colors.

What's with the shells?

The shell motif first started when I found George R. McGhee Jr's seminal work “Theoretical Morphology” abandoned in a hallway at CMU.

It presents a fascinating look into a mathematical perspective behind how the real and speculative models of organism growth.

From the early days in Processing to P5.js and Javacript and finally to SVGs and Typescript. This tool has come a long way.

Feel free to play around and download your very own shell!