In PolyPaths, every image is more than just decoration — each frame serves a structural purpose. Much like traditional scientific illustration, you’ll often find small, almost invisible notches, symbols, or densities of linework in the corners — subtle cues meant to guide the eye and decode the work.
The layouts and frames in this series draw inspiration from my personal collection of botanical encyclopedias and museum specimen sheets. These references don’t just depict plants; they convey a measured world — proportions, annotations, specimen labels — all signaling: this is not merely an image, it is a system that has been observed, quantified, and archived.
That’s why each scene in PolyPaths follows its own visual syntax. Circular, rectangular, or elongated — each ratio has a corresponding type of framing. The outermost ring, often lined with fine notches, acts both as a loading bar during animation rendering and as a subtle indicator of plant count. In circular formats, these marks resemble the hour divisions of a clock.
You might ask: why include these at all?
Well, beyond helping me debug the number of plants on screen (yes, I’ve lost count in my own overgrown simulations), they offer an alternative rhythm of looking. When a scene gets dense and chaotic, these tiny markers become anchors — a way to count, navigate, and reorient.
And once you start noticing them, a new layer of viewing opens up. Perhaps this is where my deepest artistic inquiry lies: embedding hidden measurements and coordinates beneath the surface of organic growth, where the viewer, unknowingly, becomes the surveyor — part observer, part participant, part archivist.
隱藏在畫面裡的尺標
在《植徑集》裡，任何畫面都不只是裝飾，它們都被賦予了結構性的用途。就像傳統的科學繪圖，往往會在角落留下看似不起眼的刻度、符號與筆觸密度，它們其實是引導觀看、解構作品的一種方式。
這一系列作品採用了多種 layout 與外框設計，靈感來自我長期蒐集的植物圖鑑與博物館標本照。這些圖鑑不僅強調植物樣貌本身，也透過比例、標示、標本紙的格式與說明欄位，傳遞「這不是圖像，而是一個被測量過的世界」。
因此，《植徑集》的每一幀畫面，也都對應一套視覺語法：
圓形、方形、長幅，根據不同比例會出現不同的標示框。最外圈的那一圈微小刻線，既是動畫生成時的 loading bar，也是隱性地標示這群植物的數量。這些刻線，在圓形的外框中，形成類似時鐘的節點。
你可能會問：為什麼要加這些？
其實除了 debug 系統中植物數量的功能（沒錯，我也曾被自己畫面裡爆炸的植叢搞到數不清），它還提供了另一種觀看的節奏與方法——當畫面變得複雜、不易辨識時，這些刻線就成為計數與定位的依據。
而當你開始注意這些細節，也就打開了另一種觀看模式，也許這就是我創作時最深刻探勘，
讓「自然生長」的背後，藏著一套嚴密的尺規與座標，
而觀眾，在不知不覺中也成為測量者、參與者、紀錄者。