Lichtenberg

Lichtenberg grows a glowing fern of electricity over an object, the branching figure of a high-voltage discharge. The figure creeps out from one point, branches faster and faster, holds, fades, and then grows again somewhere new.

How it works

The pattern is grown with the dielectric breakdown model, the physics used to study how electrical discharges spread. The discharge sits in an electric field, and each new step is most likely where the field is strongest, which is always at the tips that reach furthest out. That runaway is what makes the fern shape. Growth runs across points spread over a sphere around the object, so the figure crawls over its surface. The thick channels carry a hot white core inside a coloured glow, fresh tips flash as they break through, and slow pulses of light run outward along the channels from the root. Each cycle grows, holds and fades, then starts again turned to a new orientation.

Settings

• Branching: low values give dense, bushy ferns; high values give sparse, lightning-like strokes.
• Node Count: how many points the discharge can grow through; more gives finer branches.
• Growth Time: seconds for one grow, hold and fade cycle.
• Line Width: the thickness of the channels.
• Pulse: the strength of the light running along the channels.
• Color (the glow) and Core Color.

Use it for

Energy and power brands, sci-fi tech, electric title moments. See also Lightning and the Tesla Discharge cursor.