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What is MicroWorld
MicroWorld is a rule driven cellular automaton.
Representation of the world
A world is represented as a sequence of sequences (to represent a two dimensional array) of cells. A cell is represented as a map having at least the following properties:
- x The X offset of this cell within the array (should not be tampered with).
- y The Y offset of this cell within the array (should not be tampered with).
- state The current state of this cell, represented as a clojure key; initially :waste.
Rules can add any additional properties to cells that you like; the current 'ecology' rule-set adds properties for the populations of deer and of wolves.
Representation of rules
Rules are simple production rules, in a grammar defined in the documentation. Each rule is compiled into a Clojure anonymous function of two arguments, world and cell, which if its conditions are met returns a new cell which must the same x and y values as the cell which was passed. Any other properties may be modified.
What is MicroWorld for
The underlying intention is to crudely model the evolution of human settlement in a landscape, but also to act as a learning environment to teach ideas about software and about geography and ecology.
User interface
The MicroWorld user interface is currently just an auto-refreshing web page, containing an HTML table. Each cell in the world is represented by a cell in the table. Each HTML cell has a class whose name is derived from the state of the world cell, and contains an image whose filename is derived from the state of the world cell.
The 'state' classes are defined in a CSS file 'states.css', which should be edited when you add additional states. Image files should be 32x32 pixels and should be stored in the directory 'img/tiles', be in PNG format, and have a name comprising the name of the state followed by '.png'.