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> Wave Function Collapse I've always found the name pretty misleading and grandiose, relative to what the algorithm actually does.
Real wave functions collapse based on the measurement apparatus.
There isn't any interference phenomena. It's just bad.
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I wonder how well it will work for generating certain street tile patterns, where tiles of different sizes are used and where it is not allowed to have four tiles meeting at one point and where there are no H-patterns. See [1] for a large pattern and [2] for an animation using patterns within an 8 by 8 square. I did figure out a set of Wang tiles [3]. [1] https://www.iwriteiam.nl/D1801.html#4 [2] https://www.iwriteia…
Nice to meet you. It seems that you have been researching this topic in depth. Since you have been researching this topic for a long time, I don't have any immediate thoughts on it, but I think I need to think about it a little more. While working on Simple-Tiled WFC this time, I kept wondering whether I should reference neighbours in more than four directions, but in the end, I'm glad I finished without referencing…
> Wave Function Collapse I've always found the name pretty misleading and grandiose, relative to what the algorithm actually does.
I think the metaphor is great. Each tile has a superposition of possible states that collapse into one observed state. That’s all the metaphor is meant to mean, I think. What are better names? - Lego Simplices - Tile Constraint Pairing - Pipe Fitting - Cartesian Convolution (nah) - Finite automata (ok that’s fair, but subthings need names) I dunno, I think the WFC metaphor works for me. The “wavefunction” is just the…
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They say "On each step...[yadda yadda] we have a completely observed state, the wave function has collapsed." So they're trying justify calling a "state" a "collapse". That's a bad metaphor to start with, but then they try to use that metaphor to justify calling lots of other stuff "waves" that are unrelated to waves, and continue to shove that square peg thru a round hole. Hilarious.
It is even funnier when you consider that the entire algorithm is deterministic, assuming a fixed seed for a PRNG.
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I think the metaphor is great. Each tile has a superposition of possible states that collapse into one observed state. That’s all the metaphor is meant to mean, I think. What are better names? - Lego Simplices - Tile Constraint Pairing - Pipe Fitting - Cartesian Convolution (nah) - Finite automata (ok that’s fair, but subthings need names) I dunno, I think the WFC metaphor works for me. The “wavefunction” is just the…
> Each tile has a superposition of possible states This is like saying an uninitialized integer has a superposition of all possible values. I find it a very convoluted way of saying "each tile has a set of possible next states" - dragging quantum terms to this is just confusing, in my opinion.
[1] https://paulmerrell.org//thesis.pdf [2] https://paulmerrell.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/compariso...
Interesting algorithm, thanks for sharing. I was wondering what the connection of Wave Function Collapse is to constraint solving, since it seems to do very similar things. Looks like there was a paper written on this topic: "WaveFunctionCollapse is Constraint Solving in the Wild". Still need to read it, though.
There's no "connection". This is constraint solving. The supposed connection to quantum theory in the name is spurious, as that is not what superpositions are, nor is it how nature resolves them, nor is it even particularly defendable as an "approximation". It's something else entirely. It is what it is now, but when you see people like me grumbling about the name, this is basically why. It's like all those "I built…
Sorry for another ignorant question. Does WFC have a corresponding algorithm name in constraint solving literature? The paper I mentioned partially reimplements it using answer set programming which seems to be closely related to SAT solving.
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There's no "connection". This is constraint solving. The supposed connection to quantum theory in the name is spurious, as that is not what superpositions are, nor is it how nature resolves them, nor is it even particularly defendable as an "approximation". It's something else entirely. It is what it is now, but when you see people like me grumbling about the name, this is basically why. It's like all those "I built…
Thank you, I was kind of expected this. I can understand your frustration, the name is definitely misleading. Sorry for another ignorant question. Does WFC have a corresponding algorithm name in constraint solving literature? The paper I mentioned partially reimplements it using answer set programming which seems to be closely related to SAT solving.
Perhaps another angle of frustration with the name is that people apply the Quantum WooWoo to the algorithm and go all "whooaaaa" when it fact it's basically the first thing you might think of when solving a constraint problem.
Which is not to say that is a bad thing. Putting the "simplest solution to this class of problems" into your toolbelt is a good thing. That's why a lot of schools cover things like A* search and linked lists; in the real world you often need some elaborations but there's also plenty of problems you can solve with them as-is and it's a good starting point. It's just the conceptual interference from the name that is a bit annoying.
Great article! The idea of applying WFC to puzzle generation is really clever. Thanks for sharing!