Note: This competition has an impact on bitmap and vector graphic programs because with a CRMT-image interpreter and corresponding CRMT-command lists all sorts of patterns and tiles can be generated from input images.

Exploring a Design Space for Patterns and Tilings

a periodical programming competition involving Image Processing, Machine Learning, Mathematics and Visual Arts (student contributions are welcome)

The goal of this periodical programming competition (with some price money) is the exploration of a special design space of patterning & tiling methods and to make selected points of this space (methods that generate interesting and aesthetic results) available for image editing so that contemporary and future artists, illustrators, comic artists, designers, ... can use them under an open source license (CC0 and the like).

The design space relevant for image editing is based on the idea that patterns and tiles can be generated by basic shapes (prototiles) together with a CRMT command list approach that repeatedly clone, rotate and mirror a prototile and translate it over a finite pattern plane. With this unified approach the centuries of mathematical and artistic knowledge about patters, tilings and ornaments will be usable in image editing for bitmap and vector images. By programming CRMT-image interpreter as standalone programs or Plug-ins in bitmap graphic programs (GIMP, Photoshop, ...) and vector graphic programs (Illustrator, Inkscape) very powerful artistic tools can be made that will be using a growing number of CRMT command lists to generate all sorts of patterns from input images.

The goal of the first competition is to reproduce known tilings from the Tiling Database (http://www.tilingsearch.org/). This should be done by a learning process because such processes should be the basis for exploration the design space and its extensions in further iterations of the competition. Technically the learning of a CRMT command list for a tiling is viewed as a 2D packing problem with the 2-objective function "gap -> 0 & overlap -> 0".

The competition is originated in the field of Evolutionary Art therefore the learning process should be preferably done with Evolutionary Computation (EC) methods like Genetic Programming but it is not restricted to this if the learning environment with all aspects and parameters are published under an open source license so that others can use it for further exploration.

A detailed description of this programming competition with more technical details, winning conditions, price money, and future directions can be found under:
http://de.evo-art.org/index.php?title=Exploring_a_Design_Space_for_Patterns_and_Tilings_Competition_2015

Registration starts on 01.05.2015 and ends on 15.11.2016. Contributions can be made until 15.01.2016.

Comments and suggestions to all aspects of the competition project are appreciated and should be addressed to Dr. Gnter Bachelier (guba at evo-art.org).

Please redistribute this Call for Participation in appropriate mailing lists, blogs, tweets, ... to address and attract as much as possible developer, scientists and students in Evolutionary Computation, Machine Learning, Image Processing and Editing, Mathematics, Media Art, ...