In development by Christoph Bader and Dominik Kolb, SimpSymm is a program for the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 tablet that takes a simple geometry and, through a series of “generations”, turns it into a symmetrical topiary of intricacy. The generations are manipulated by users through parametric criteria, such as rotation and offset; resulting in clean, continuous and sealed objects for 3D printing.
The output generated by SimpSymm already resembles some of the other 3D printed artwork out there. When made available to the public, SimpSymm will make it possible for anyone to become an artist. One can easily imagine the program taken a step further and set to “autopilot”, in which the shapes could be generated entirely at random by the software itself. Bader and Kolb have performed similar experiments with a program called QUADDEL, which generates coral-like structures through an automatic growth process.
It may intimidate some artists out there to see beautiful work created so simply, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind when considering programs like SimpSymm. For one, the true art at the heart of such projects may be the programming itself, with Bader and Kolb artistically crafting beautiful algorithms.
