I can see the fascination of this problem. There are so many ways to approach it, from addressing the physics, to higher level attempts to get the right look. Searching around, it seems to have justifiably caught the imagination of many.<p>Here's another approach, made interesting by its use the connection machine [1], whereby an attempt is made to simulate the diffusion of pigments though paper.<p>[1] <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/72ab/54ecaaf7458853bd441b9458ac3130526596.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/72ab/54ecaaf7458853bd441b94...</a>
I have to say that the "sample works" look superb - I wonder what they would look like printed onto fabric? I visited quite a successful manufacturing company here in the UK and they basically had huge inkjet printers printing their designs onto fabric...
Really awesome effect! If author is here, would love to hear more about the 'deformation function' mention - is it a fractal height-map type approach that splits each line of polygon and deflects?