Contact Guidance Order Parameter: Top-Down Cell Alignment on Micro-Grooves

This 2D companion renders the same contact-guidance mechanism as its 3D sibling — a nematic alignment torque that turns migrating cells toward a micro-grooved biomaterial surface's ridge direction — from directly above, so the population's collective ordering reads at a glance. A live rose diagram in the corner turns each cell's heading into a two-lobed polar histogram that visibly sharpens as the population aligns, a groove cross-section panel ties the depth and pitch sliders straight to the physical bump profile they control, and the four readouts (order parameter, guidance strength, migration anisotropy, elapsed simulated time) update in real time. Drag the main view to pan across the periodic surface and scroll to zoom in on individual cells turning to track the ridges.