Design Tooling - Metric-based Design - Cellular Automata

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Introduction

CA cellular automata present a large body of work around rule based grid based systems that can demonstrated self organizing principles as well as emergence within a very limited and unit based environment without any higherlevel object oriented data structures.

Fluid dynamic simulation using Cellular Automata

A hexagonal and aquare grid based CA simulates fluid dynamics through a set of collision rules
The CA model makes it possible to simulate a fluid which in nature is made up of billions of atoms with a very small finite set of elements that interact on a simple set of collision rules. The rules and the controlled hexagon enviroment allows for fluid like behavior at fraction of the computational power necessary to simulate a model with even closely the same amount of particles.
System is modeled based on the description in "the nature of mathematical modeling" by Neil Gershenfield.
Other grid patterns are possible, a grid pattern for instance which reduces the complexity of the necessary rules.

axel kilian 2003

- Fluid dynamics with cellular automata - hexagonal grid

- Rule set for a hexagon grid (excerpt only)

- source code in .java

- Fluid dynamics simulation using a square grid

"A new kind of science"- by Stephen Wolfram

Fluid dynamic simulation using Cellular Automata

Stephen Wolfram has produced one of the most complete work about CA and realted complex computational constructs with his book "A New Kind Of Science" He illustrates a waste number of different CA and shows analogies to nature and growth and how complexity can arise out of very simple rule sets. Below just four very simple examples from the book - the book is available online now.

Wolfram, S. "A new kind of Science" , LLC 2002, image page 53

For reference refer to Wolfram's "A new kind of science" which illustrates a large number of fascinating CA based examples