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:space_invader: JS library for simple biological simulations and cellular automata

Home Page: http://rileyjshaw.com/terra/

License: MIT License

JavaScript 100.00%

javascript cellular-automata biological-simulations js-library

terra's Introduction

terra

JS library for cellular automata and simple biological simulations. Documentation and examples live here.

Hacking this library

To build terra on your machine you'll need Node.js, Bower, and gulp installed. Then...

cd path/to/terra
npm install
bower install
gulp

Contributing

At this stage the most important way you can help is to use the library. The API is in Beta and still flexible. If you discover something that's confusing or hard to work with, document it here. Come up with an idea and try to build it; by using and testing the library you'll find bugs or usability issues that would otherwise go unnoticed. If you want to make a pull-request on anything labeled 'major', be sure to join the discussion first so we can talk architecture. If anyone's willing to get the ball rolling on unit tests, you will be my hero.

That's all, folks! MIT, remixing strongly encouraged.

terra's People

Contributors

Stargazers

Watchers

terra's Issues

Add Ising model simulation to 'examples' section

@crawfy48 made an Ising model simulation of 2D ferromagnetic material here. IT'S AWESOME!

Firefox: sticky header doesn't stick

Cannot find 'demo' module

I want to try this out but when I follow the directions:

cd /path/to/terra
npm install
gulp

I get an error message:

$ gulp
[18:11:20] Using gulpfile ~/Projects/terra/gulpfile.js
[18:11:20] Starting 'lint'...
[18:11:20] Starting 'demo'...
[18:11:20] Starting 'sass'...
[18:11:20] Starting 'webserver'...
[18:11:20] Webserver started at http://0.0.0.0:8000
[18:11:20] Finished 'webserver' after 5.3 ms
[18:11:20] Starting 'watch'...
[18:11:20] Finished 'watch' after 13 ms
[18:11:20] Finished 'sass' after 39 ms
[18:11:20] Starting 'css_concat'...
[18:11:20] Finished 'css_concat' after 12 ms

events.js:72
        throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
              ^
Error: Cannot find module './demo/scripts/main.js' from '/Users/dylntrnr/Projects/terra'
    at /Users/dylntrnr/Projects/terra/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:42:25
    at load (/Users/dylntrnr/Projects/terra/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:60:43)
    at /Users/dylntrnr/Projects/terra/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:66:22
    at /Users/dylntrnr/Projects/terra/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:21:47
    at Object.oncomplete (fs.js:107:15)

I think this is because in your .gitignore file you are ignoring the demo directory.

Add neighborhood options

Add a simpler method to choose between Moore and Von Neumann neighborhoods.

var t = new terra.Terrarium(4, 4, {
  neighborhood: 'vonNeumann'
});

A Von Neumann neighborhood can be achieved in the interim (or on a per-creature basis) by simply filtering the Moore neighbors in process().

Suggested by @crawfy48.

Use without node?

Dumb beginner Q: is it possible to "play with" Terra in a static HTML page by just importing "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/terra/latest/mainfile" i.e. no node, no Bower, no Gulp? Following the guide I'm getting: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'appendChild' of null.

Some functions from util.js should be accessible within creature methods

_.filter(), _.some(), and _.all(), for example, are very important for handling neighbors.

A bit strange since these functions should be available in some form on most modern browsers, but it'd be nice to have.

Allow a user-definable stopping condition

Allow a comparison function to run on a per-creature-per-n-steps basis (where n is a definable resolution). For speed reasons it probably doesn't make sense to allow for "compare with last creature that was here" type checks..

// animate until all creatures of type 'important' are dead
...animateWithStoppingCondition(function (creature) {
  // if any creatures return `true`, continue the simulation
  return creature.type === 'important';
});

"queue" isn't a great name

Consider evaluateState, nextState, process...

Add a method to populate a terrarium non-randomly

Can't get an example to work.

I'm using the following code, no errors, getting a 0x0 canvas with nothing displayed. If I manually increase the size of the canvas with the inspector I get a green square. Any ideas?

<html>
<head>
    <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="terra.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
  $().ready(function() {
// the demo running at the top of this page
var paTerrarium = new terra.Terrarium(25, 25);

terra.creatureFactory.register({
  type: 'plant',
  color: [0, 120, 0],
  size: 10,
  initialEnergy: 5,
  maxEnergy: 20,
  wait: function() {
    // photosynthesis :)
    this.energy += 1;
  },
  move: false,
  reproduceLv: 0.65
});

terra.creatureFactory.register({
  type: 'brute',
  color: [0, 255, 255],
  maxEnergy: 50,
  initialEnergy: 10,
  size: 20
});

terra.creatureFactory.register({
  type: 'bully',
  color: [241, 196, 15],
  initialEnergy: 20,
  reproduceLv: 0.6,
  sustainability: 3
});

paTerrarium.populate([['plant', 50], ['brute', 5], ['bully', 5]]);
paTerrarium.animate();
});
</script>
</body>

</html>

CAs: Adding interactive functions via HTML buttons

Heya,

Using terra.js, I just made a simple predator prey CA that results in traveling/chaotic waves:

http://theoreticalbiology.nl/spiders/

I'm looking to extend this by allowing interactive functions, such as killing some prey, killing some predators, restarting, etc. The default terrarium functions .animate() and .stop() function propperly. How can I add new functions to this terrarium?

I tried figuring out how to do this in the terra.js module, which sort of worked, but I'm looking for advice on how to do this "neatly" in javascript.

UPDATE: i've mostly overwritten the old version, so most of the functionality I discuss here is now implemented.

Bram

Add check to see if simulation has reached stasis

A callback or eventEmitter would be very useful in this case. Consider running terrarium.stop() by default.

Add margolus neighborhoods

Set frame rate/ animation delay

By default the animation is synced to the frame rate of the monitor. It would be nice if a custom frame rate or a delay (e.g. 1 second between frames) could be set before calling animate(). I'd be happy to look into doing this for you.

Remove global override of Math.random

Early on, I decided to use seedrandom's { global: true } option. It was a silly decision in retrospect.

The big change here is that seedrandom should be internal to terra and not pollute Math.random().

Following this thread, seeded RNG should really be handled more granularly anyway. Initial thoughts:

Each terrarium is given a unique ID
This ID is used to seed the terrarium's RNG

That way, a terrarium recipe and ID are all you need to perfectly reproduce a simulation. It'll no-longer be bound to other uses of random() on the page.

Thanks @benswinden for the heads up! 👍

Oh, Canada!

Alias colourto color, neighbourhood to neighborhood, etc.

Add unit tests

This is a pretty important one... anyone want to join forces?

Canvas context font is set every time draw() is called

ctx.font = 'bold ' + cellSize + 'px Arial';

should happen when the canvas is initialized, not in the display loop...

Add support for elementary cellular automata

Elementary cellular automata

Rule 110

Debug information while making stuff in terra

Hi !

Background

I was going through your introduction over at http://rileyjshaw.com/terra and I got stumped by the following not working as demonstrated:

Initially I thought the frequency of frames was too high so I set about counting the number of Ticks:

It turned out only 8 ticks were happening.
-- At this point I realised the creature 'Plant' from the first screenshot was not initialised.

So, my suggestion is:

Lets have some debug info available in terra from dev tools!

One I have added in for myself is 'registeredCreatures':

Note

I'm a noob, please excuse me if I missed an existing way of getting this information.

Compute cell from coordinate

Would be great if I could easily determine which cell is under the mouse cursor on click.

Docs click populate doesn't work

In your docs ( http://rileyjshaw.com/terra/ ) when I click on populate() in "Creature type, to be used later in populate( )." doesn't go to populate.

Allow periodic boundaries

Currently, corner cells have 3 adjacent cells and wall cells have 5. Periodic boundary conditions would allow every cell to have 8 adjacent cells by "wrapping around" the Terrarium.

var t = new terra.Terrarium(4, 4, {
  boundary: 'periodic'
});

Suggested by @crawfy48.

registerCreature and registerCA should be separate functions

This comment exposes some flaws in trying to squeeze creatures and CAs into the same class.

Proposal:

// internal
terra.factory.registerCreature = function () { //... };
terra.factory.registerCA = function () { //... };

// API
terra.registerCreature = function (args..) {
  return terra.factory.registerCreature(args..);
};
terra.registerCA = function (args..) {
  return terra.factory.registerCA(args..);
};

terra.factory.make() can still produce creatures and CAs.