Clades provides an engaging and creative window into the world of interactive evolutionary design. With this unique app, people of all ages and abilities can utilize (and develop) their own aesthetic judgement to produce a myriad of visual forms. The only requirement is the desire for novelty - and an appreciation of surprise!

Clades allows you to guide the evolution of a branching, tree-like structure. Beginning with an “ancestral” species, a genetic algorithm is used to produce a population of descendants. This population is then presented to the user. After the user chooses a species that best fits their own subjective criteria, a new population of descendants are generated using the chosen species. This exploratory process can be repeated indefinitely, and the possibilities are truly limitless!

This app represents the latest in a line of interactive evolutionary algorithms that originated with Richard Dawkins in his classic book, The Blind Watchmaker. Features include an evolutionary history viewer, a favourite species manager, and the ability to export screenshots of any species encountered along the way.

This application was designed and developed by Thomas Burt while studying at the Algorithmic Botany Lab, University of Calgary, under the direction of Professor Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz. For additional details, please visit the support page.