Nature · Study 038
Lepidoptera
A butterfly specimen generator: each set of wings is grown from a few random numbers, mirrored, patterned with eyespots and gently opened and closed.
What you're looking at
A wing outline is a curve whose radius varies with angle according to two sine terms with random strengths. The same outline is drawn three times at shrinking sizes for bands of colour, then eyespots are placed inside it. One side is a mirror image of the other, and the flap is simply a horizontal squeeze.
The idea behind it
Real wing patterns are built from a shared ground plan of bands and eyespots that different species stretch, recolour or delete. Eyespots in particular form around small signalling centres in the developing wing, which is why they come out as concentric rings.
Try this
Click or tap for the next specimen. A new one also appears every eight seconds.
