L.ink: Procedural Ink Growth for Controllable Surprise
summary
L.ink generates branching, organic strokes by feeding L-strings from L-systems into a pen that sequentially grows ink as hierarchical SVG, enabling animated, emergent forms while remaining deterministic. A direct-manipulation editor with live visual preview and a hand-drawn stamp lets users edit growth rules and populate motifs on strokes. A task-based study with 12 artists shows controllable surprise encourages experimental flow, adds organic variety to digital illustration, and sometimes breaks habitual workflows to produce unexpected creative directions.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to L-ink
- 0:24What is L-ink?
- 1:08L-systems explained
- 2:31Control and surprise in L-systems
- 3:52Creativity support with control and surprise
- 4:54Growing ink with L-ink
- 5:59Controlling ink growth
- 7:03User study findings
- 8:49Breaking workflow habits
- 9:09Closing and Q&A
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