Variations In A Frieze, Explorations With Shape Grammars To Create Decorative Patterns

Shape grammars are a formal artifact to represent knowledge of visual patterns based on rules and the use of rule-based mechanisms. They have been used to analyze the creative work of designers, architects, and artists, as well as to synthesize original languages of designs with applications to creative and industrial design and marketing. We have been developing GSG (Generic Shape Grammars), an interactive shape grammar computational system that allows the user to build, execute and test the results of his/her own defined shape grammars, a system incorporating a rule interpreter with specific algorithms in an object oriented, modular and extensible organization structure. To the user, some notable features of GSG are the powerful commands for rule application to shapes while operating with shape grammars, the ability of the system to recognize and use embedded/emergent shapes in shapes, an environment with simple/ easy interactivity with a high degree of explainability and visualization tools which also gives a didactical quality added value to the system. Many technical features of GSG have been described in published papers but, in the present paper, we demonstrate a specific application to the production of specific pattern shapes that, in a sense, could very well be qualified as creative.