Cellular Automata 3D

Implementation of 3d cellular automata in C++20 as described in this article. A brief explanation of the rules is further down below.

Dependencies

The repo contains VS2022 solution and project files and uses C++20. Dependencies are included in external/

• Raylib for 3d rendering + window management
• Raygui for UI rendering
• magic_enum to make it easier to use enums for UI settings

Controls

Controls can be found in the top center of the window.

• RESET stops the current simulation, applies all settings from the UI and initializes the grid to the initial values
• STEP simulates a single step
• PLAY/PAUSE starts of pauses the current simulation
• Mouse wheel to zoom in/out

Settings

Some settings like the render and color settings can be changed after the simulation was prepared or is running. Others such as size, states or rules will be highlighted and can be applied by pressing the RESET button.

SETTING	DESCRIPTION	VALUES
Size	The amount of cells on each axis	5-100
Render Mode	How each non empty cell is displayed	Quad, Cube, Point
Color Mode	How the color of each non empty cell is determined	Radius, XYZ, State
Gradient	The gradient that will be used to colorize the cells	Random, Random_2, Random_3, Random_4, Random_5, Grayscale, Grayscale_Reverse, Hue, Hue_Reverse
Fill Shape	In which shape the initial cells are filled	Cube, Sphere
Fill Diameter	The diameter of the Fill Shape that will be used to fill the initial cells	1-Size
Fill Prob	The probability that a cell in the Fill Shape will be filled	0-100%
Wrap Around	Determines whether the neighbours on the opposite side of the simulation cube will be counted or not	Yes, No
Steps/s	The amount of automatic simulation steps to run each second, if the play button was pressed	0-60
Neighbours	The method to calculate neighbours	Moore = 26 possible neighbours, VonNeumann = 6 possible neighbours
States	The amount of states each cell can have. 2 = on/off, 5 = 4 visible states + off	2-64
Survive Rule	Rule for cell survival (see below for more info)	List of comma separated numbers or ranges (1,2,3-5,7,10-12)
Spawn Rule	Rule for cell spawning (see below for more info)	List of comma separated numbers or ranges (1,2,3-5,7,10-12)

Rules

For a more detailed explanation, I recommend this article.

• Neighbour mode
  • Moore = all 26 adjacent cells (including diagonals) are considered
  • Von Neumann = the 6 adjacent cells with a side touching the target cell count es neighbour
• States
  • Each cell has a state in [0, states)
  • 0 means the cell is empty and invisible
  • state > 0 means the cell is visible
  • state == states - 1 means the cell counts as neighbour to other cells
  • A cell with state < states - 1 will decay every simulation step until the state is 0 and the cell empty/invisible
• Survive Rule
  • The survive rule is a list of values in [0, states)
  • Every simulation step, the neighbours of each cell are counted
  • If a cell is in state states - 1 and neighbours is in the list, the cell survives...
  • ... otherwise the state is decremented and decays every simulation step until the state is 0
• Spawn Rule
  • The spawn rule is a list of values in [0, states)
  • Every simulation step, the neighbours of each cell are counted
  • If a cell has a state of 0 (it's empty) and neighbours is in the list, the cell state is set to states - 1 to spawn a new cell