A “lifegame” approach to surface modeling and rendering

Abstract

Conway's Lifegame is a trivial and wellknown application of a more general theory called the theory of cellular automata. Complex systems modeling may be based on the theory of cellular automata, originated by John von Neumann. Our approach is to define simple components that we call “analog automata”. An analog automaton is a finite state automaton where the state is defined in terms of real numbers representing physical quantities such a position, velocity, mass or color. Deterministic state transition function are applied to these automata using information from the state of neighboring automata. In our case, successive generations in the evolution of these cellular automata are mapped onto polygonal meshes in order to build and texture arbitrary surfaces.