Diatoms are microalgae, found in oceans, waterways and soils. The valves/striae have beautiful, symmetrical organizations. Pennate diatoms for example, are organized about a line. Centric diatoms on the other hand show valve organization around a point, and are often radial in symmetry.

Radiolaria are tiny protozoa found in the ocean. They are more round in shape compared to diatoms, but their skeletal structure has a lot of similarities.

I wanted to see if I could mimic some of the patterns and shapes of Radiolaria and Diatoms with the help of Voronoi diagrams, which are often used to model biological structures.

I started by placing seeds in a radial pattern, then did a Voronoi tesselation to create Voronoi cells. I used the bonds of the cells to create 2D lines, then substituted them for 3D shapes as seen in the image above.

Variation was added using colors, height maps, ridge patterns, and a choice between circular or triangular shapes:

My GitLab Project (Made with Processing)