Varying the Number of Colors

The number of states, or colors, that a cell can adopt is given by k. For example, a binary cellular automaton, in which a cell can assume only values of 0 and 1, has k = 2. CellPyLib supports any value of k. A built-in function, totalistic_rule(), is an implementation of the Totalistic cellular automaton rule, as described in Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. The code snippet below illustrates using this rule. A value of k of 3 is used, but any value between (and including) 2 and 36 is currently supported. The rule number is given in base 10 but is interpreted as the rule in base k (thus rule 777 corresponds to ‘1001210’ when k = 3).

import cellpylib as cpl

cellular_automaton = cpl.init_simple(200)

# evolve the CA, using totalistic rule 777 for a 3-color CA
cellular_automaton = cpl.evolve(cellular_automaton, timesteps=100,
                                apply_rule=lambda n, c, t: cpl.totalistic_rule(n, k=3, rule=777))

cpl.plot(cellular_automaton)
_images/tot3_rule777.png

Alternatively, the TotalisticRule class can be used:

cellular_automaton = cpl.evolve(cellular_automaton, timesteps=100,
                                apply_rule=cpl.TotalisticRule(k=3, rule=777))

References:

Wolfram, S. (2002). A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media.