We have show that the 3D geometry of the lizard’s skin scales causes a Turing continuous Reaction-Diffusion (RD) process to transform into a space-discretised von Neumann Cellular Automaton (CA) that computes the adult pattern of the lizard. This allowed, for the first time, biology-driven research to link the work of these two mathematical giants. We first published our results in Nature (2017). We then published further analyses in Physical Review Letters and Current Biology. Check also the New York Times article.
To obtain the 3D model you are seeing here, a young adult ocellated lizard (Timon lepidus) was scanned with our in-house high-resolution scanning system by Adrien Debry and Florent Montange, the 3D model was then reconstructed using structure-from-motion and photometric stereo by Szabolcs Zakany and Ebrahim Jahanbakhsh, then retouched by Fabrice Berger.
Summary Video on CA and RD : https://youtu.be/fNJPbRaxNMU