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info

info

The Ruleset Painting Tool exists as an accessible method of exploring the way distributed systems interact and compound. Specifically, this tool allows the user to design and arrange different cellular automata — systems of computation where a group of entities each follow simple rules, but collectively exhibit complex behavior. The interface aims to create a real-time environment for playing/editing/drawing with these simple systems in the browser.

How It Works

CANVAS

The canvas consists of a 2D grid of cells.

CELL STATE

Each cell is assigned a binary value: BLACK or WHITE.

  • Values can be "painted" by the user.
GENERATION

Every cell checks it's surrounding neighborhood against a ruleset to determine if it will change state.

  • Rulesets are applied at each time step.
  • Rulesets are set by the user.
  • Cells may have different rulesets.
PARALLEL

Every cell’s ruleset is applied concurrently across the grid.

  • Evaluating one cell's ruleset will not effect its neighbor within the same generation cycle.

References

Keys