Diatom Lanterns
This article shares the design steps toward creating a lantern inspired by diatoms. Here, I begin by developing concepts, working with Midjourney and ChatGPT for image generation and biomimicry research.
I’m building this set of lanterns for Freezerburn where they’ll be displayed at the festival, June 2024. I’ll be going from a design to build to install on this project over the next three months. In future writing I’ll share other steps of the process as I research the biology of diatoms, make the parts, and craft the lanterns.
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This article will interest those who like a mix of nature-inspired technology and design.
It’s a 10-minute read. Or just a minute or two to skim through the pictures.
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The Project
Most of the images here were created by AIs. For this exercise, I tested Midjourney and ChatGPT side-by-side, comparing their image-generating capabilities to determine how each can be used in the biomimicry design process. The above image was created in Midjourney using a custom style I generated as part of this exercise.
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Keep It Creative
In the early stages of design I find that keeping a fluid and sketch-like graphic encourages creative thinking and problem solving. One goal of this project was to create a custom style that I could reuse in future projects. The final style I decided to work with is shown as #3 above.
Before I got there I generated several styles to guide Midjourney towards the desired look and feel. Four of these styles are shown above, each allowing a consistent aesthetic across several images and prompts.
If you are working with Midjourney you can also explore these styles. Here is A Quick Intro to Using Midjourney Styles which provides instructions for using the four styles shown above.
For beginners, here is a one minute video intro to Midjourney to help you get started.
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Lantern Designs with Midjourney
With a style now prepared, I began generating options. I reused parts of the same prompt multiple times, adding more detail as I refined the design principles based on research from ChatGPT (more on that in a minute).
Initial prompts for Midjourney imagery included sentences like:
Several surreal diatom-inspired quartz and glass lanterns.
The intricate shell of the diatom is highlighted in the lantern design.
Style to be steampunk cartoon with bright orange and blue. Ink with photorealistic details.
Following these guidelines, Midjourney created hundreds of lantern options, of which only a few are shown above.
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Diatoms: Microalgae in Glass Dishes
It seems to me that Midjourney doesn’t really grasp the shape or biology of diatoms.
For those of you new to diatoms, here’s a quick intro:
Diatoms are a type of algae that are found in oceans, fresh water, and soils. They generate 20% of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. Diatom shells are tough and can stay intact for millions of years.
These single-celled algae live in intricate shells made of a glass-like material that is mostly silica (SiO2). In centric diatoms, the shell is formed of two transparent dish-shaped shells that attach together to form a transparent cylinder (with the cell inside).
In biomimicry we are trying to emulate the strategies of organisms in order to solve specific problems, to achieve desired outcomes. Diatom shells support several outcomes, or functions. Here’s a few highlighted in bold:
Provide structural protection via a hard outer layer.
Elongate over time by adding rings at the center, sometimes these are split rings that are not fully closed.
Split in two during replication, creating one part with the same diameter, and a second smaller copy.
Capture and modify light with transparent silica-based materials.
Grow attachments including connection points and defensive spikes.
Attach to each other in chains, spirals, and fans.
One of the goals of this project is to create lanterns that incorporate some of the diatom functions: for example, lanterns that elongate or that attach together in chains.
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Lantern Designs with ChatGPT
A little ways into working with Midjourney, I opened up Chat GPT (ever willing to work at 2:00 in the morning). As I was using it for research I remembered that it’s software has recently expanded to include image generation. I decided to test this out.
While ChatGPT’s image-generating software is less controllable, this AI can do both research and design. I started by providing some style guidelines:
Style to be steampunk cartoon with intricate details. Splashy watercolour background against solid black or white. Designs to have a strong focus on complementary colours.
Then I did some tests of this style, producing the images above:
Image 1: In the first task I asked ChatGPT to create ten diatom-inspired lanterns. …It gave me just three, but I was surprised how it already incorporated diatom features with just a simple prompt. (Tip: It’s not very good with numbers).
Image 2 and 3: In subsequent tasks I asked it to visit several scientific databases and websites, reading journal articles about diatoms. Via several interactions we talked through lantern designs that reflected diatom biology and physiology.
…Sort of
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Lantern Collaborations with ChatGPT
The image above is maybe my favourite from the whole exercise, and it resulted from a mistake.
I went through several iterations with the AI:
research - translate - images - research - translate - images - research - translate - images - …
Research
Sometimes the resulting images aligned with my understanding of diatom biology and physiology. Other times, GPT would go on a tangent and provide results that missed something critical in the prompt.
For example, in one request I asked for a lantern inspired by a triangular species of diatom. ChatGPT’s designs, shown above, were all circular. These “errors” turned into helpful creative outcomes, generating unexpected and novel solutions. I especially like the plan views in this set and how much they remind me of diatoms and mimicking the ribbing and fine details without copying a diatom exactly.
Translate
Large-language models like ChatGPT are experts in translation, not just between languages but also between terminology used by different specialists. As I went through this process I asked ChatGPT to provide analogous terms between diatom biology and lantern design and I gave it a couple examples of what I was looking for. I’ve summarized a few of its suggestions in the diagram above, indicating the possible analogous parts between a lantern and a diatom — between my design challenge and the biological model.
Images
Because ChatGPT can search the internet, it can do it’s own research and integrate that information into the designs generated. Very quickly the images started to look like diatoms.
FYI I had to add the text separately. ChatGPT is not yet good at creating technical drawings and diagrams and uses made-up words and jumbled letters when trying to label drawings.
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Daydreams and Design Principles
(Daydreams because I’m usually sleeping by 4:00am)
Generating design principles is a crucial step in the Biomimicry Design Process. An Abstracted Design Principle (ADP) is a statement that translates biological strategies into problem-solving guidelines. An ADP has three parts:
Function: The outcome of interest, written as a verb. See the Biomimicry Taxonomy for a list of functions.
Strategy: How the organism achieves the function, in general terms.
Mechanism: The details of the strategy. This may be as short as a single sentence — or it may be pages long descriptions including detailed diagrams.
Why am I talking about this?
Well, several of the AIs I’ve worked with seem to really like abstracted design principles. Or rather, I like the results they generated better when I use these kinds of descriptions. Both ChatGPT and Midjourney created far better options when I use the terminology of abstracted design principles. For example, sentences like the following:
Cylindrical wood and metal lanterns with details of intricate ridges and pores like diatom species and specimens.
or
The lantern design should have details, ridges, bumps, and pores on it's roof and outer walls like those details, ridges, bumps and pores seen on a diatom.
or
The lantern will have colourful stained glass details based on diatom ribbing and pore structures.
Midjourney couldn’t understand biology terms, when I started talking about frustules and girdle bands it just got confused. But if I could describe frustules and girdle bands as structures or parts (instead of using biology terms), it could sometimes get close.
ChatGPT demonstrated reasonable capability here, and even jumped at the chance to create its own ADPs, which went pretty well and generated several promising options. That said it’s important to note AIs like ChatGPT (1) do not really know the meaning of the sentences they create, and it (2) do not reliably speak the truth.
As such I’ll need to check it’s suggestions and refine them as I continue my research. While ChatGPT and other Large-Language Models may be inaccurate and sometimes blatantly wrong, this exercise showed me that they can be a great place to source creative options early in a project.
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Midjourney vs ChatGPT
…And that, friends, was 10 hours of work. Fun, deeply engaging work that slipped the night away.
Some take-aways from my experience of using these two AIs in the biomimicry process:
Midjourney
Pros: Midjourney can create custom styles that carry through several images and iterations. It’s images are more artistic and the graphic settings are modifiable and predictable using parameters. Strong Abstracted Design Principles lead to designs that better reflected biological strategies and structures.
Cons: Midjourney cannot do online research or obtain new information, i.e. it is limited to its existing database. The Discord social media interface takes some getting used to.
Chat GPT
Pros: ChatGPT generated reasonable interpretations of the biology quickly and with little guidance and is able to work with biological terms. It is able to combine online research with image generation and can work with abstract concepts. It showed more creativity and diversity in the range and styles of solutions provided.
Cons: Scientific information and abstracted design principles provided by ChatGPT should always be checked and validated. It can provide inaccurate data and information, sometimes in subtle, hard-to-catch ways. ChatGPT’s graphic style tended to shift as we progressed, which was beneficial for generating diversity but posed challenges for consistency.
These powerful tools have some shared issues. They both require training and practice to get started and to work with effectively. While the paid versions I’ve been using are generally fast and powerful, the free versions can have limited capabilities and be slower or inaccessible at times.
That said they both seriously speed up steps of the biomimicry process, generating ideas quickly and widening the solution space. As I continue to work in this way, it’s becoming easier to move between the realms of biology and design.
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Past > Present
For this projects I’ve started by experimenting and generating options without worrying about real-world design parameters (yet). Incorporating the AI tools into the process helped me generate options quickly and to shift intuitively between biology and design. This creative play turned several errors and misdirections into new ideas and opportunities.
Above is an early prototype lantern made in an earlier round of the project. The pattern of Triceratium, a triangular species, was cut into the panels of an 8 sided box.
In this next design I’d like the lantern body to mimic the shape of diatoms in some way. A lantern could, for example, be a cylinder or petri-dish shape that elongates, or perhaps a series of lanterns could form a chain.
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Present > Future
Maybe you can see some of the AI ideas reappearing in my sketchbook? (I can.)
The next steps of the process include:
Continue researching diatoms.
Compare the ADPs provided by ChatGPT with my research. Check them and add detail, diagrams, and measurements.
Create new sketches that integrate lantern design ideas from Midjourney and ChatGPT with the updated ADPs
Look at the exiting lantern prototypes and experiments and consider what design elements I should reuse or redesign.
Test materials, build prototypes, play with light.
That’s all for now! I’ll have more to write about as this research continues.
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