# Procedural Estuary Field Guide

This guide is generated from the atlas metrics. It is meant as a compact reading path through the local artifact rather than a separate hand-written summary.

## First Look

- Open `atlas.html` for the dashboard.
- Start with curated winner Glass lagoon (seed 31027), then compare it with sweep winner Harrow bight (seed 42034).
- Use the ranking lens cards to see why Glass strand and Glass lagoon are interesting for different reasons.

## Main Findings

- The curated top specimen is Glass lagoon with score 5.3379, network length 743.05, and tide swing 0.2485.
- The 96-specimen sweep found Harrow bight as the highest base-score specimen with score 5.3615.
- The longest network is Glass lagoon at 743.05 cells.
- The largest tide swing is Glass strand at 0.2863.

## Score Behavior

| Metric | Sweep correlation with score |
| --- | ---: |
| network_length | 0.734 |
| branch_count | 0.712 |
| edge_complexity | 0.667 |
| tidal_swing_fraction | 0.431 |

The original score mostly rewards busy estuaries: many branches, long networks, and complicated edges. The ranking lenses keep that finding visible while offering alternate winners for tidal change, habitat mosaic, and island structure.

## Lens Winners

| Lens | Winner | Seed | Lens score | Map |
| --- | --- | ---: | ---: | --- |
| Visual Interest | Harrow bight | 42034 | 1.0 | `lenses/visual-interest_42034.png` |
| Tidal Theater | Glass strand | 42050 | 0.8877 | `lenses/tidal-theater_42050.png` |
| Navigation | Glass lagoon | 31027 | 0.9258 | `lenses/navigation_31027.png` |
| Habitat Mosaic | Glass strand | 42050 | 0.7099 | `lenses/habitat-mosaic_42050.png` |
| Island Labyrinth | Morrow fen | 42027 | 0.743 | `lenses/island-labyrinth_42027.png` |

## Caveats

- These are fictional cartographic specimens, not physically accurate coastal simulations.
- The creek graph is generated from channel geometry rather than extracted from rendered pixels.
- The sweep does not render all 96 variants; it keeps the review surface small while preserving metric evidence.