{"id":1996,"date":"2010-11-30T16:20:35","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T21:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1996"},"modified":"2010-11-30T17:11:28","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T22:11:28","slug":"cellular-automata-escapes-from-the-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1996","title":{"rendered":"Cellular Automata Escapes from the lab!"},"content":{"rendered":"

~Click images to view on original site~<\/em><\/p>\n

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Textile Cone Snail (Conus Textile)<\/p><\/div>\n

Doesn’t this just freak you out?\u00a0 I’ve actually held a few seashells like this in my own hand and seeing that computer art pattern on such a natural and living thing is just deeply weird.<\/p>\n

We’ve all seen fractal patterns in broccoli, pine cones and spiral snail shells but for some reason those things just looked natural.\u00a0 I guess fractals patterns are just plain natural looking while cellular automata is quite distinctively artificial and machine made in appearance.\u00a0 Except for these seashells, of course.<\/p>\n

Some living things use naturally occurring cellular automata in their functioning.<\/p>\n

Patterns of some seashells<\/a>, like the ones in Conus<\/a><\/em> and Cymbiola<\/a><\/em> genus, are generated by natural CA. The pigment<\/a> cells reside in a narrow band along the shell’s lip. Each cell secretes<\/a> pigments according to the activating and inhibiting activity of its neighbour pigment cells, obeying a natural version of a mathematical rule. The cell band leaves the colored pattern on the shell as it grows slowly. For example, the widespread species Conus textile<\/a><\/em> bears a pattern resembling the Rule 30 CA described above.<\/p>\n

-from Wikipedia, Cellular Automaton<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s what that “Rule 30” CA looks like:<\/p>\n

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Rule 30 CA pattern generated from Kidojo.com's online generator<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a whole family, a taxonomic family called conidae, with other CA rule 30-ish patterns:<\/p>\n

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Conidae family reunion sporting characteristic CA-30-ish patterns. Photo by "Pet" on Wikipedia CC-SA<\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to Cellular automata, these seashell patterns also remind me of those old dot-matrix printers that back in the old days would have been used to print really cheesy looking graphics (back when ascii art was cutting-edge stuff).<\/p>\n

But hold that thought for a moment; that’s the way these CA patterns are made: one line at a time.\u00a0 Or rather, one row of cells at a time.\u00a0 The shell pattern is the printout from the row of pigmentation cells and thus the shells display a matrix of dots –dot matrix CA printing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Conus bengalensis<\/p><\/div>\n

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Conus aureus<\/p><\/div>\n

Maybe you have to be as excited as I am about CA patterns to feel the enormity <\/em><\/strong>of all this.<\/p>\n

You know, if they ever drop the bomb and civilization as we know it disappears and there’s no more electricity and computers and internet, we can still have computer art galleries made of Cellular Automata from these kinds of seashells.\u00a0 In fact, considering how durable the material they’re “printed” on is, they may be the only kind of computational art around in the distant future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

~Click images to view on original site~ Doesn’t this just freak you out?\u00a0 I’ve actually held a few seashells like this in my own hand and seeing that computer art pattern on such a natural and living thing is just deeply weird. We’ve all seen fractal patterns in broccoli, pine cones and spiral snail shells … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/800px-Textile_cone.jpg?fit=800%2C600","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":959,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=959","url_meta":{"origin":1996,"position":0},"title":"Collidoscope.com’s Modern CA –Animation Wonderland!","author":"Tim","date":"19 March, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"[update: 01\/04\/2026, unfortunately the site for these CA java applets is no longer online.] There are Cellular Automata java applets, and then there are THESE Cellular Automata java applets! I'm excited.\u00a0 These things are pretty cool.\u00a0 Some of you may have seen them before.\u00a0 They've been online since 2002, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=959#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4287,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=4287","url_meta":{"origin":1996,"position":1},"title":"The Varieties of Fractal Experience","author":"Tim","date":"4 December, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a theme that binds all these images together but I can't seem to find the right words for it.\u00a0 Freaky; harmonic; other worldly; sacred symbols; journey into mystery: they all fit for some but not for all.\u00a0 I guess variety is best; with a play on the famous book\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=4287#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Some-old-thing-by-Brutaltoad.jpeg?fit=400%2C300&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1538,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1538","url_meta":{"origin":1996,"position":2},"title":"The Jumping Spiders of Oklahoma, and elsewhere","author":"Tim","date":"8 September, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Is DNA an algorithm?\u00a0 Can its renderings be presented as Algorithmic Art?\u00a0 Will they jump down off the wall and attack the well-dressed gallery patrons? Consider the humble jumping spiders of Oklahoma: As always, click on any image to view it on the original web site or in full-size. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1538#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/jumping-spiders-of-Oklahoma.png?fit=474%2C786&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":923,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=923","url_meta":{"origin":1996,"position":3},"title":"Kandid’s Cellular Automata and the Creativity of Computational Art","author":"Tim","date":"13 March, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Of all the things that the Genetic Art java program Kandid does, I had always found (until recently) it's cellular automata features to be the most enticing and the most disappointing. The cellular automata, true to their synthetic, space age name, looked very computer-ish and although the high contrast color\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=923#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/DirectLca_RGB_g6okgclp_g6okgd84_x427_y427.png?fit=427%2C427&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5962,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5962","url_meta":{"origin":1996,"position":4},"title":"Kandid beats Apophysis, Chaotica and JWildfire with millions of colors tied behind its back!!!","author":"Tim","date":"25 January, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"An old, point and click program operating in grayscale can be more creative and artistically profitable to use than a cutting-edge fractal flame renderer like Chaotica or JWildfire.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AffineIfs_Gray_fq385cae_j6z1pxee_x768_y768.jpg?fit=768%2C768&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AffineIfs_Gray_fq385cae_j6z1pxee_x768_y768.jpg?fit=768%2C768&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AffineIfs_Gray_fq385cae_j6z1pxee_x768_y768.jpg?fit=768%2C768&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/AffineIfs_Gray_fq385cae_j6z1pxee_x768_y768.jpg?fit=768%2C768&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":362,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=362","url_meta":{"origin":1996,"position":5},"title":"Fractal Woodburning","author":"Tim","date":"28 January, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not making this up.\u00a0 I went surfing about to see what I could find in the fractal world and lo and behold at Flickr, a couple of pages into a search on the term \"fractal\", I saw wires, boards and strange, curly burn patterns.photo by AetherPhoto caption from Aether's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1996"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}