Phyllotaxis: Draw Flowers Using Mathematics

Use R to make art and create imaginary flowers inspired by nature.

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9 Tasks1,500 XP21,624 Learners

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Project Description

R is a tool for doing serious statistics and data analysis. But not everything in life can be serious, life is also beautiful, and R can make beautiful things too. R can make art.

The arrangement of leaves on a plant stem is ruled by spirals. This fact is called phyllotaxis and it is a nice example of how mathematics can describe patterns in nature. In this project, we will invent flowers using this fact.

This R project assumes you have familiarity with the ggplot2 package. If you want to see more examples of how you can use R to make art, you should check out the Fronkonstin blog created by Antonio Sánchez Chinchón.

Project Tasks

1
Patterns in nature

2
Warming up: drawing points on a circle
3
Make it harmonious with the Golden Angle
4
Remove everything unnecessary
5
A bit of makeup: size, color and transparency
6
Play with aesthetics: the dandelion
7
Put all it together: the sunflower
8
What if you modify the angle?
9
All together now: imaginary flowers

Technologies

Topics

Data Visualization

Antonio Sánchez Chinchón

Data Scientist at Telefónica

Antonio Sánchez Chinchón is a mathematician and works as a data scientist at Telefónica, where he tries hard to extract value from data every day. He is the creator of Fronkonstin, an unclassifiable blog of mathematical experiments, data science, data art, and R programming. He plays the guitar in a rock band. You can follow him on Twitter @aschinchon.

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