TeX "glue" (stretch and shrink)

[Gordon Haverland]

Sorry, this isn't really a TeX problem, but it feels similar.

In TeX, we usually have all characters with a common "working" height
and working depth from a specified baseline, but the width of the
characters can vary significantly.

Most people lay out trees on a Cartesian grid system.  If all the trees
you are planting are the same species and that species is consistent,
that probably works fine (except there are channels where winds can
blow through your grid).  But if your collection is of different
species; it is probably hopeless to think about using a common
Cartesian grid.  If a person wants to use 72 and 114 degree angles
(from the rhombus Penrose tiling) for determining tree positions based
on 1 particular origin, we can guess a possible location based on some
previously determined location "nearby", but then we probably want to
stretch or shrink our "glue" to "best place" this next tree.

Is it useful to try and think about this from a "typesetting" point of
view, or should I look at some other way to solve this?


What I am doing is setting up a combination deer exclusion hedgerow and
a windbreak.  The hedgerow will involve that wonder tree of the Great
Plains (Osage orange) to deter deer (including moose).  Row 2 will be
bur oak (big tree, could be 100 feet tall and 100 feet wide), row 3 is
a combination of 2 nut pines (only 20 feet wide, but possibly 120 or
170 feet tall (no wind, but my farm has wind)).  Rows 4,5,6 will be
random trees that are somewhat smaller than a bur oak, some of which
cast deep shade and some of which cast very little shade.  There are
other twists.  Some of these trees grow fast, and some not so fast (the
oak).  I won't live to see this mature (I'm 59).

But, the hope with involving some aspect of aperiodicity (the 72 and
114 degree angles aka 5 fold symmetry) is to reduce the possibility of
"channeling". Some places have a prevailing wind.  I have a different
sets of prevailing winds for winter and summer (but the summer ones can
come at any time of year), and I also have significant chance of
retrograde winds.  North of west, SW and north of east are vague
descriptions of those 3 winds.

Determining end of paragraph seems interesting.

Have a great day!
Gord