Two-Dimensional Cellular Automata from One-Dimensional Rules

Posted by & filed under Demonstrations Project, Mathematica, Wolfram.

The Wolfram Demonstrations Project published my program which shows how to reproduce some two-dimensional (2D) cellular automata (CA) with one-dimensional (1D) rules. Thus a large subclass of 2D CA can be conveniently labeled through the standard Wolfram indexing of 1D CA. One step of time evolution of a 2D CA is obtained in two stages. First, apply a 1D rule to all the ROWS of a 2D initial condition. Then to the result apply another 1D rule, but now to all the COLUMNS. This can be mapped onto the subclass of 2^512 two-color 2D CA with a nine cell square neighborhood. It is useful to devise smaller subclasses of the general case to manage classification of such a large number of CA. Examples of such subclasses are totalistic CA, outer-totalistic CA, and the new subclass demonstrated here. Click on the picture below for more technical description and to play with the program. Click on the YouTube icon to view a short video of the demonstration.

Two-Dimensional Cellular Automata from One-Dimensional Rules