Still Life

Where am I now?

This section of Jemima's Chevron is devoted to rug-like graphics generated using alternate rules for John Conway's game of Life.

Persian Rugs

It all started with the Persian Rug sample pattern that came with LifeLab for the Mac. The transition rule is B234/S, which means a square is filled in the next generation if it had 2, 3 or 4 live neighbors. The S rule means no squares survive between generations.

Here's how it starts out:

Eight generations of persian rug (B234/S)

When the rug gets bigger, it starts to look more Persian:

Persian rug generations 25, 50 and 100 at a smaller scale

The images above are black and white. When you take a big rug and shrink it smaller than one pixel per square, you get a nice grayscale image:

Persian rug generation 1000 at a smaller scale (click to enlarge)

See the Persian Gallery for more rugs.

Other Rugs

I was surprised to find that several sets of rules create Persian rug-like patterns. I didn't know of names for them, so I just made some up. I called B234/S0 Arraiolos:

Arraiolos generation 100 (B234/S0)

More rules coming soon...

Making Tiles

If you use a torus as your grid (by joining the edges), you get an instant tile pattern. I made most of my tiles using rule B235/S3, which I called Rosettes because I thought it looked like stained glass. I used a 400x400 or 500x500 torus and shrunk the images down 75%, so the PNG sizes are either 100x100 pixels or 125x125.

The following typical tile was made with rule B235/S3 on a 500x500 torus.

Rosette generation 1000 (B235/S3)

See the Tile Gallery for more tiles.