Enzymind Labs

How do you rationally design and make materials that have highly organized micro-structure. Periodic and pseudo random structure occurs in many naturally formed materials, but not necessarily at the desired scale, or with a specific repeated unit or material. Non-periodic but deterministic structure is less common in non-living physical systems, but is the rule for living systems.

Growth and form are often locally rule based in living systems and globally rule based in non-living systems.

Doug Heiken and I took some video and still photos of forest land near the Blue River Resevoir, OR, that will be thinned, with the intention of re-photography after the thin. These are related notes and materials.

A 90 year old forest of mostly Douglas fir that was naturally established after fire about 90 years ago. This area will be thinned as part of the Bridge Thin timber sale, probably in late 2008 or 2009. The prescription is 17 foot "designation by description." Unit 82 and part of unit 80 are included in the polygon (see below).

Human brain surface model comparisons

    In the process of making a reasonably accurate bronze cast of a human brain, I came up against the limitations of polygonal surface models. In particular it is difficult to generate a highly detailed and topologically correct polygonal mesh from high resolution (~1mm)  MRI volume data.

    This is just a visual comparison between renderings of brains, using both volume rendering and polygonal mesh surface rendering techniques.

I've been reading a lot of material developed by Alan Kay (e.g. his writings), and others who have been influenced by Kay's vision of what operating systems and software should look like to create a revolution in the way people, in particular children, learn.

Was having some techical difficulties with the enzymind gallery. Did some web server voodoo and all is fine now.