
Hexagonal Langton's Ant 2 – Colors, Gliders and Highways - brtmr
http://brtmr.de/index.html
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jones1618
Love it! Here are some cool patterns:

    
    
      * RPB - Looks like a 3D printer printing a bowl of Cheerios
      * PRLL - Simplest Eastbound highway
      * BRSS & BLPP - Nearly space-filling hex spirals

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brtmr
Thanks! I have also discovered a pattern that is fully space-filling: BPBBP -
will slowly fill the entire screen with a growing green hexagon, with a single
yellow dot at the origin.

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FWeinb
Great work! I build[1] a classic javascript interpreter for Langton's Ant a
few years ago. Just updated it to include support for custom rules. Thanks for
reminding me about Langton's Ant it is always cool to recall things one build
in the past.

[1]: [http://codepen.io/FWeinb/pen/CJpjl](http://codepen.io/FWeinb/pen/CJpjl)

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joshcorbin
My versions of the same fwiw:

\- [https://jcorbin.github.com/hexant](https://jcorbin.github.com/hexant) \--
the hexagonal one I'm working on now

\- [https://jcorbin.github.io/ants](https://jcorbin.github.io/ants) \-- the
square grid one I made several years ago

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joshcorbin
e.g., here's a neat one:
[http://jcorbin.github.io/hexant/#colors=light%28360%2C%20100...](http://jcorbin.github.io/hexant/#colors=light%28360%2C%20100%29&rule=ant%282L%2064F%202S%29&frameRate=65536&drawTrace)

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brtmr
woa. that looks awesome ;) what am i looking at - whats the rule? and are you
also coloring the spaces the ant has already been on, but that reverted to
their original state?

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joshcorbin
It's not the most obvious UX but hit "/" to open the rules dialog, this rule
set is "ant(2L 64F 2S)". Click through to the project page and check out the
README for more info on the key binds:
[https://github.com/jcorbin/hexant](https://github.com/jcorbin/hexant).

The coloring trick is a recent addition I call "redraw tracing"; essentially
there are two color palettes: one for "cold cells" and "hot cells" (ones that
haven't/have been visited "recently").

What makes it "redraw" tracing is that "recent" is simply defined as "since
last full redraw". Full redraws are triggered when the ant hits an edge of the
screen.

I plan to expand the tracing to support "last-N" tracing where "recent" would
mean something more comprehensible like "in the last 1024 iterations" f.e.

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rntz
BSPSPSPSPSP - This program/configuration _appears_ to execute a random walk.
Hard to be sure.

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drdeca
Well, it's deterministic, because the program is deterministic, but it
certainly does look random.

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byron_fast
So this is how the universe's only electron updates the state of every atom!
Maybe.

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indrax
BRL - seems to have rotational symmetry, grows very slowly, not sure if it
repeats. Would make a good loading spinner.

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dpc_pw
I'd love that as an animated android background.

