On three-dimensional cellular automata

For scripts to aid with computation or simulation in cellular automata.
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muzik
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On three-dimensional cellular automata

Post by muzik » July 8th, 2016, 7:53 am

I want to know, are there any sites or apps that can simulate 3D (or perhaps 4D?) cellular automata, that work on mobile devices? (better yet, can someone develop one?)

It would be really cool to see a cubic growth pattern that spat out quadratic replicators, resulting in a... Sierpnski pyramid? Or I could see a cubic replicator in action... Not to mention the new spaceship directions...


Cubes.io kind of works but it isn't suited for mobile at all.

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simsim314
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Re: On three-dimensional cellular automata

Post by simsim314 » July 9th, 2016, 2:50 am

Although I agree 3d CAs could be pretty interesting, there are two major problems with them that makes their research much less interesting:

1. You can't really see what's happening in 3d CA. Our eyes are built to see 2d surface of 3d objects, not 3d internal structure. It's cool to think about sierpinski pyramid, because you see interesting surface, but usually you don't see anything interesting and you don't see it at all because complex internal structures is hard to grasp.

2. They're much more costly. Think that 1000x1000 2d grid takes 1MB, but 1000^3 3d grid, takes 1GB.

So we're limited to pretty small grids, which we can't really see, not something fun to explore.

Sphenocorona
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Re: On three-dimensional cellular automata

Post by Sphenocorona » July 9th, 2016, 3:22 pm

The other problem is that outertotalistic CAs seem to be less interesting overall anyway. There don't seem to be any programs for isotropic 3D rules currently, though coming up with a notation for that sounds like a nightmare, but that might make it possible to find interesting rules. Then again, finding a specific rule to focus on the most then becomes a challenge...

Alternatively, Generations rules might yield interesting results but no programs exist for that either as far as I'm aware...

I had previously found a program called Cellumat3D (I think) that allows exploring 3D CAs but it won't work on mobile.

For someone to develop one, it matters what kind of mobile OS it runs on. If it's android, then someone could develop one for free and that'd be great, but if it's iOS then anybody wanting to make the program you request would have to pay a bunch of money for a developer's license.

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simsim314
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Re: On three-dimensional cellular automata

Post by simsim314 » July 9th, 2016, 6:27 pm

Sphenocorona wrote: Generations rules might yield interesting results but no programs exist for that either as far as I'm aware...
I think ready from golly gang can support custom scripts (didn't get deep into it).

Check it out.

Obviously no mobile (don't think 3d automata which is much more computationally intensive will run on mobile even when supported by mobile platform).

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