Golly's pattern collection

[Alexey_Nigin]

I am running Golly 2.6, so excuse me if these errors are not present in 2.7.

I have noticed a few strange things in Golly's pattern collection.

• Life\Rakes\forward-LWSS-rake-p90.rle actually creates MWSS.
• Life\Rakes\basic-rakes.rle contains one redundant spaceship that does not interact with anything (in the top-left).
• WireWorld/gate-XOR.mcl contains one redundant cell. Canonical form is:

  Code: Select all

  x = 6, y = 7, rule = WireWorld
  .A$.C$4C$C2.3C$4C$.C$.A!

[dvgrn]

I have noticed a few strange things in Golly's pattern collection...

Thanks for starting this thread. I'll review and fix the above items eventually. Anyone is welcome to add comments and suggestions for Golly's pattern collection here -- I admit it's gotten seriously out of date in the past few years.

I'd like to do a fairly thorough overhaul of the collection, and also the Life Lexicon, for Golly 2.8 or Golly 3.0 or somewhere in there. But it's the kind of thing that I have to pick away at very slowly. It's a big job, and at the moment I don't have several weeks straight to devote to writing comments and making difficult executive decisions.

There's been some discussion on the golly-test list about how to organize a much larger pattern collection that can still be integrated with Golly in some way... i.e., maybe sorted into similar categories -- oscillators, guns, signal circuitry, etc.

The idea that brought it up was that the new Herschel conduit / elementary conduit / H-to-G / H-to-G(n) collections seemed too large to fit in the base collection, but it would be nice to be able to let people know that they were available for download from (let's say) the Very Large Patterns repository, which I think relatively few people even notice. Most people wouldn't be interested, but for the people who download it, it might be nicer if it showed up in the Signal-Circuitry folder instead of off in some monolithic downloads folder along with every other downloaded file.

Maybe it will work to set up an extended collection as a ZIP file with the same subfolders as Golly's pattern collection, but that won't drop files into the right places automatically unless there's a script in the ZIP file to unpack everything correctly -- and not everyone has Python installed, and not everyone might be interested in having their pattern folders automatically adjusted, anyway. (?)

[otismo]

I am posting here because I am interested in releasing a Golly distro

That would include Golly and the Life Viewer as part of the Pattern Viewing/Playing Options

Typically Golly is the "Star" and the patterns are just whatever happens to be bundled along with

I want to host a download where the Patterns are the "Star", but have not found a Player that does Colors "Right"

Mirek's Celebration and George Maydwell's Author no longer work in my computer, and they did things with color, some simple things,

That I have YET to find in any modern, current player; but I had collected over 200 CGoL android apps.....

I would have to agree that the daunting thing is how to begin to organize it all

But one must begin from the user perspective

One kind of user may find a "conduit toolkit" usefull

While another may find a collection that most graphically illustrates all the different Rules more suited to his purpose...

I want something for the Average Person - John Q. Public

I am looking/qualifying for the biggest WoW Factor

Because my goal is to generate/promote interest and then build interest specifically in CGoL and CA in general.

So I welcome any input - does not have to be "noteworthy", and can even be "trivial"

In search of The Spectacular

[dvgrn]

I am posting here because I am interested in releasing a Golly distro

That would include Golly and the Life Viewer as part of the Pattern Viewing/Playing Options

Typically Golly is the "Star" and the patterns are just whatever happens to be bundled along with

I want to host a download where the Patterns are the "Star", but have not found a Player that does Colors "Right"

Mirek's Celebration and George Maydwell's Author no longer work in my computer, and they did things with color, some simple things,

That I have YET to find in any modern, current player; but I had collected over 200 CGoL android apps.....

Yup, I still miss George Maydwell's showy colorful Color Game of Life Visual Exhibition. I don't miss it so much now that LifeViewer is capable of doing very nearly all the same things, and a bunch of other stuff besides. But we don't yet have a big easy-to-find online showcase that's just one amazing LifeViewer pattern after another, or a page like CGOLVE's main exhibition page that brings up a tiling of different colorations of different random soups in different rules, every time you refresh the browser.

Instead, there are just a lot of odd corners of Lifespace like my animations for the G4G talk and occasional random waypoint scripts buried in seldom-visited forum threads.

I would have to agree that the daunting thing is how to begin to organize it all...

You're in luck, actually: the current development version of Golly now includes a script that renders the currently open pattern in LifeViewer, with waypoint scripts if any in full working order. This is a replacement for the old lifeviewer.lua -- LifeViewer has gotten too complex to be worth porting into Lua.

So the hard part is just getting the community to build a whole lot of waypoint scripts for the various Spectacular Patterns that fit in a LifeViewer grid, and maybe build a bunch more Spectacular Patterns for the specific purpose of showing off LifeViewer. We could easily make a larger "LifeViewer" collection available as an optional download.

Unfortunately this runs up against the old "who is going to bell the cat?" Aesop's fable. It's fairly time-consuming to build beautiful labeled scripted showcase patterns. Just have to start somewhere, I guess.

[otismo]

trying to decide whether to build

A - a show room

OR

B - a model home

am leaning towards the model home because it will kill many birds with one stone -

and be the BEST option to attract Software Developers and other Humble Dudes of the Open Source.

BOTH A and B will feature demos on huge displays, but the Home-Of-The-Future will be built around the Entertainment Wall :

two-sided, one side for the Adults and the other side for the Children, and can be ANYTHING : Magnificent masonry encasing a massive

ten foot tall fireplace with a roaring fire inside, twenty foot tall stained glass windows on either side, an aquarium that is a virtual Window

into the Ocean on the mantle piece - and ALL OF IT is software. There will be insatiable user demand for all kinds of

customizations, and a standard bundle that is a full array of teasers to showcase the possibilities. The model home can easily be

incorporated into The Affordable CGoL Orlando Vacation, and we can have regularly scheduled CGoL shows,

right in your Home-Of-The-Future. Think : Bigger than Disney.

A carefully crafted curated credited commented Pattern Collection - and it would have to include EVERYTHING, or it would just be frustrating

to the very people who would want it, to begin with - is a Noble Goal, the Ultimate Goal - but one must strike whilst the iron is hot.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, when taken at the crest, may lead to a lot of really terrific surfing. The Patterns We are

interested in will attract interest and build interest. The Mona Lisa from one cell is trivial and not noteworthy To This Community

but it is EXACTLY the kind of thing we are after - stuff that will be Incredible, Fantastic, even Thrilling to the Average Citizen.

Just today in another Pattern Thread I found the Perfect FireCloud Pattern to kick off the FireCloud thread with.

I simply must diligently comb thru these Forums very carefully and systematically and even then I will miss some things so need

to be recursive in my efforts as well. Your efforts to have something for the Quinquagenary means that you are almost

finished to be on time; I have to take my time until I know I have something that will do a job. The efforts are not worth it unless

the results are forthcoming. Fortunately I will be able to build my best efforts on top of yours.

Thank You !

Post Script :

That Life Viewer is your Trump Card, and I need to be learning it as well.

But I would like to see something that works in-browser that

does colors right. I may try to contact George Maydwell yet...

[otismo]

That Life Viewer is your Trump Card, and I need to be learning it as well.

But I would like to see something that works in-browser that

does colors right. I may try to contact George Maydwell yet...

Here is the best one I have found to date :

online utility/demo

gol.zip

code in a zipfile-java-html-canvas-css

(41.25 KiB) Downloaded 336 times

java is not compiled but is crunched/compacted

it does have a randomizer tho, so next up is

loading or embedding a patternfile...

-O.

[dvgrn]

Here is the best one I have found to date :

online utility/demo

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but just for the record, I've never been able to load pages consistently from your links. I usually just get

This page isn’t working
gol.jct.onl didn’t send any data.
ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

This is true for links posted a while ago, like these, as well as this current one.

[otismo]

Here is the best one I have found to date :

online utility/demo

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but just for the record, I've never been able to load pages consistently from your links. I usually just get

This page isn’t working
gol.jct.onl didn’t send any data.
ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

This is true for links posted a while ago, like these, as well as this current one.

I have the cheap cheap cheap and dirty AND unsecure hosting solution - my server is in Bulgaria - and is un-secure so Gremlins can -

and DO - interpose... Un-secure because it is a test to see what I am up against - and what I will require when "the rubber starts hitting the road"

from now on I will post original links as much as possible

https://www.tebs-lab.com/

https://tebs-game-of-life.com/

This is the good one ( another rule feeding CGoL - embedded in a webpage - software so you can DIY ) :

https://tebs-game-of-life.com/glidervil ... ville.html

Here is the other, "Colorful One" :

http://rafaelcosman.github.io/JSGameOfLife/

[dvgrn]

This is the good one ( another rule feeding CGoL - embedded in a webpage - software so you can DIY ) :

https://tebs-game-of-life.com/glidervil ... ville.html

Wow! That one really is getting fairly close to being a potential replacement for George Maydwell's CGOLVE software. I like the gradual shading across the board.

[otismo]

This is the good one ( another rule feeding CGoL - embedded in a webpage - software so you can DIY ) :

https://tebs-game-of-life.com/glidervil ... ville.html

Wow! That one really is getting fairly close to being a potential replacement for George Maydwell's CGOLVE software. I like the gradual shading across the board.

since it has randomize - should be able to load/embed patterns - really like this one

[Entity Valkyrie 2]

Should there be a StateInvestigator patterns in the Golly pattern collcetion?

[Hunting]

Should there be a StateInvestigator patterns in the Golly pattern collcetion?

I think yes.

[Entity Valkyrie 2]

I'll make a zip file of things for the StateInvestigator part.

EDIT: Not today.

[fluffykitty]

I vote no since neither the similar but much older extendedlife nor any of its variants are included in Golly.

[Moosey]

I vote no since neither the similar but much older extendedlife nor any of its variants are included in Golly.

I agree

[Entity Valkyrie 2]

So it's two against two

[Hunting]

So it's two against two

Yea, two against two. Any other voters?

[Moosey]

Let me clarify my vote:
I'm neutral, but add Extendedlife + extendedlifefancy patterns if you have StateInvestigator

[Hunting]

Let me clarify my vote:
I'm neutral, but add Extendedlife + extendedlifefancy patterns if you have StateInvestigator

They could go with StateInvestigator: SI has every state EL and ELF hve

[GeorgeMCA]

Yup, I still miss George Maydwell's showy colorful Color Game of Life Visual Exhibition. I don't miss it so much now that LifeViewer is capable of doing very nearly all the same things, and a bunch of other stuff besides.

The colors used there were based solely on computed neighbor counts.

Using a different color for each total neighbor count seems to work pretty well for colorizing Game of Life. Food for thought.

[GeorgeMCA]

Using a different color for each total neighbor count seems to work pretty well for colorizing Game of Life. Food for thought.

It should be possible to test this right now in other programs which support multiple states and coloring by state number by turning Game of Life into an equivalent ten state cellular automata with states dead, live0, live1, ... , live7, live8.

[dvgrn]

It should be possible to test this right now in other programs which support multiple states and coloring by state number by turning Game of Life into an equivalent ten state cellular automata with states dead, live0, live1, ... , live7, live8.

It's just slightly tricky. I think getting a rule to look exactly like a CGOLVE display might take one extra state -- regular old state-1 "live", let's say -- and a step size of 2 instead of 1, emulating B3/S23 at half speed. Or maybe we could do something clever with a larger neighborhood.

The problem is that any given cell has no way of knowing how many of its neighbors are going to turn on in the next tick. That's going to depend on the states of a lot of neighbors' neighbors that are outside of the cell's neighborhood.

That just means we have to alternate between EVOLVE and COLOR, every other tick, where the EVOLVE step creates the next two-state B3/S23 pattern from a multistate color-coded pattern, and then the COLOR step changes those state-1 cells back to their correct CGOLVE colors. At a step size 2, a half-speed CGOLVE rule will look just like two-state Life if you start from an even generation number, and just like CGOLVE if you start from an odd generation.

What _was_ the CGOLVE color scheme for live0 through live8, anyway? Is that easy to retrieve?

[GeorgeMCA]

The problem is that any given cell has no way of knowing how many of its neighbors are going to turn on in the next tick. That's going to depend on the states of a lot of neighbors' neighbors that are outside of the cell's neighborhood.

In my proposal any live cell knows its neighbor count from the previous generation. This is all it needs for colorization.

What _was_ the CGOLVE color scheme for live0 through live8, anyway? Is that easy to retrieve?

I'm looking at ancient Java code now. Its overkill. It apparently uses ranges of hue/saturation/intensity values to determine a set of unique colors and then it arranges the colors in the set into a random order before assigning colors to state values. The set of colors used appears to be large.

I've since experimented and have determined that using only a small number (three or four) of distinct colors seems to work way better than I expected. Colors assigned to state values will repeat but this doesn't seem to matter. Three color sets that seem to work well are { red, green, blue }, { red, green, blue, magenta }, and { cyan, magenta, yellow }.

[confocaloid]

The problem is that any given cell has no way of knowing how many of its neighbors are going to turn on in the next tick. That's going to depend on the states of a lot of neighbors' neighbors that are outside of the cell's neighborhood.

In my proposal any live cell knows its neighbor count from the previous generation. This is all it needs for colorization.

Three colors:

Code: Select all

x = 60, y = 25, rule = LifeWithThreeColors
bo$bo$bo3$58b2o$b2o54b2o$b2o55bo3$b2o$o2bo$b2o3$b2o$o2bo$o2bo$b2o3$2b2o$bobo$obo$bo!

@RULE LifeWithThreeColors
@COLORS
1 255 255 0
2 255 0 255
3 0 255 255
@TABLE
n_states:4
neighborhood:Moore
symmetries:permute
var a={1,2,3}
var b={1,2,3}
var c={1,2,3}
var d={1,2,3}
var x={0,1,2,3}
var x1={0,1,2,3}
var x2={0,1,2,3}
var x3={0,1,2,3}
var x4={0,1,2,3}
var x5={0,1,2,3}
var x6={0,1,2,3}
var x7={0,1,2,3}
var x8={0,1,2,3}
0,a,b,c,0,0,0,0,0,1
a,b,c,d,0,0,0,0,0,2
a,b,c,0,0,0,0,0,0,3
x,x1,x2,x3,x4,x5,x6,x7,x8,0

[GeorgeMCA]

It's just slightly tricky.

Sorry. You are absolutely correct about this. The Java app always displayed intermediate results before actually advancing. The two step alternating rule you proposed is probably required for other software to exactly emulate what was done in the Java app. And from reading code it appears that the Java app potentially used 25 different colors for live cells in Game of Life.