"Imagene" comes from a crossover between "Image" and "Gene".

Imagene is a system that uses fundamental principles of evolution for generating visually appealing images from mathematical formulas. For example image vc008 in this gallery is generated from the formula:

(sin (+ (dtan (* (* (/ X Y) (* Pi X)) Pi)) (sin (* X (* (- Y X) (- Pi Pi))))))

How do we get the formulas? We start with a number of random formulas, generate the images and show them to the user. The user selects two images that they like. These are the parents of the next generation and the children are constructed from different fragments of the parents, similar to crossover in biological genes. The process of generating the images and showing them to the user is then repeated.