Langton's ant • Hacker News Board

Re: Langton's ant

#41

Post by GhotiFish » Thu, Sep 04, 2014, 7:34 PM UTC

daeken wrote: post #14

I've been obsessed with Langton's ant for a good solid decade now. My latest creation is a few years old now, but occasionally I go back and add new commands. It's inspired by Langton's ant, but it operates in 45 degree increments, has the ability to fork, conditionally execute instructions, has colors, and a bunch of other interesting things. You can see it in action at http://demoseen.com/langton/#.FP$!!!!!!!!!!!!!…

any way to simulate turmites with this?

Re: Langton's ant

#42

Post by cezarywojcik » Thu, Sep 04, 2014, 8:03 PM UTC

daeken wrote: post #39

cezarywojcik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is awesome - lot of fun to play with. This is the best pattern I've been able to come up with so far: @!!@@" rel="nofollow">http://demoseen.com/langton/#..rr@ @!!@@

That's really cool -- I love 'lattice' type patterns. This is my current favorite, because it seems to terminate (stabilize) and then does one last little bit. Runs for a good while before it 'terminates', as well. http://demoseen.com/langton/#.$!~PF!!!! .

After playing with this a good bit, here's my favorite:

..$.^" rel="nofollow">http://demoseen.com/langton/#@@1o..+..-1o..+..-..$.^

It makes a cloth/napkin, and then slowly absorbs blood from the four corners.

Re: Langton's ant

#43

Post by daeken » Thu, Sep 04, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

cezarywojcik wrote: post #42

daeken wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really cool -- I love 'lattice' type patterns. This is my current favorite, because it seems to terminate (stabilize) and then does one last little bit. Runs for a good while before it 'terminates', as well. http://demoseen.com/langton/#.$!~PF!!!! .

After playing with this a good bit, here's my favorite: ..$.^" rel="nofollow">http://demoseen.com/langton/#@@1o..+..-1o..+..- ..$.^ It makes a cloth/napkin, and then slowly absorbs blood from the four corners.

That's really, really cool. I want to make a gallery system for these, where people can submit theirs and others can modify from there. Btw, I just added a polar mode (the grid is treated as polar coordinates, and converted from there); the & instruction switches to polar and _ brings it back to cartesian, so you can actually blend the two. http://demoseen.com/langton/#&m.$!~PFP!!..

Re: Langton's ant

#44

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Sep 04, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #35

V-2 wrote: post #32

How about 3D Langton's (or Langtonish) ants? Or more dimensions? :)

Need at least one new rule and a new color.

You could still do it with two colors if it remembered the previous color as well, and if you didn't allow "keep going straight" or "move back in the direction you came from" as options.

(Imagine the ant as a space-ship, and every time it turns, it also changes its pitch/yaw, so the directions are based on its direction of travel.)

    Current | Previous | Action
    white   | white    | go starboard
    white   | black    | go port
    black   | white    | go down
    black   | black    | go up