1d cellular automata simulation with terminal and PNG output.
Simulates 1d automata with given Wolfram style rules and codes.
Limitations (because it gets awkward to specify outside of these):
- first order
- odd sized neighborhoods
- max radix (number of symbols) is in [2,36]
There are various other limitations when things get large, the easiest to run into being the rule number must fit into a u128. To fix this I need to implement:
fn parse_rule(r: String, from_radix: u32, to_radix: u32) -> Hashmap<u128, Cell>
There are a handful of different output modes:
- Null (evaluates and then does nothing)
- Cell (cell value to ascii digit)
- Ascii (limited radix)
- Unicode (limited radix)
- AnsiGrey (greyscale ascii)
- UnicodeAnsi (default - half height unicode + any radix)
- PNG (writes to stdout, RGB, any radix)
- Raw (writes cell values in binary, no newlines)
ca1d <radix> <neighborhood> <rule number> <start config string>
Note the start config string is padded to width and is given in base 36, which is ordered 0..9abc...z
$ ca1d 2 3 30 1 --output=Ascii
@
@@@
@@ @
@@ @@@@
@@ @ @
@@ @@@@ @@@
@@ @ @ @
@@ @@@@ @@@@@@
@@ @ @@@ @
@@ @@@@ @@ @ @@@
@@ @ @ @@@@ @@ @
@@ @@@@ @@ @ @ @@@@
@@ @ @@@ @@ @@ @ @
@@ @@@@ @@ @@@ @@@ @@ @@@
@@ @ @ @@@ @ @@@ @ @
@@ @@@@ @@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@@@
@@ @ @@@ @@@@ @ @@@ @
@@ @@@@ @@ @@@ @@ @@ @ @@@
@@ @ @ @@@ @ @@ @@@ @@@@ @@ @
@@ @@@@ @@ @ @@@@@@ @ @ @@@ @@@@
@@ @ @@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@ @@ @ @
...
The default output is "UnicodeAnsi" which uses ansi colors plus unicode block elemets:
Here is a 5 radix, 3 neighborhood rule with a random (@) starting config which pipes its PNG output to img2sixel (using mintty terminal):
Standard rust project, check out and run cargo build.
It is structured into a library + binary + tests, but only for ease of testing: no thought has been put into how a CA API should be.
Arbitrary "code" specification. Code -> rule display (define inverse code mapping fn).
Reversable rule style?
Performance: I have barely looked at really tuning this. There is still some low hanging fruit though.
Floating point cells? Perhaps these could work with code-specified rules.
Is it possible to get 8 distinct cells using unicode + ansi colors? I googled..
RGB colors get picked to be maximally differentiated, but what might look better would be nice gradients. This should be some simple math I just don't want to learn it just yet..
Sixel output. Rust libsixel bindings are fine I guess, but libsixel documentation
sucks. Meanwwhile do: --output=PNG | img2sixel