Form and growth of hierarchical spatial networks
A wide number of spatial structures result from the growth of individual linear segments that can bifurcate and meet to form a reticulum. The most well known example are crack patterns, but a wide range of naturally occurring patterns share similar rules of growth, including leaf venation patterns, animal trails and human street networks.
In such structures there is a temporal hierarchy in the appearance of individual segments that is also reflected in the spatial hierarchy of the pattern. Together with Stéphane Douady I am currently working towards a general method of characterisation of this kind of structures.
I am still writing the related paper, and I will put more on this page in a while.
