Artificial Life Links Page

Contents

1. General ALife Resources
2. General Game Of Life Information
3. Game of Life Catalogues
4. Game Of Life Simulations
5. General Boid Information
6. Boid Simulations
7. Other Artificial Life Simulations

General ALife Resources

http://www.alife.org
ALife Society 2.0's Home Page:
Vast resource of articles and links to ALife papers
Acts as the home of the web society of international researchers and research institutes who focus on ALife.
NOTE this link was not working last time it was tried,
I will update when I can find the new link

http://www.newscientist.com/
The New Scientist Home Page:
Home Page of a particularly accessible scientific journal
Includes a searchable archive section.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/alife/
BBC's ALife web site
Contains general information on alife
Also a simplified version of Biotopia
Note written in Java 1.1 and so might not work on some earlier browsers, although downloading link for later suitable browser is included.

General Game Of Life Information

http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/emergence/rules-of-game.html
Very good essay/tutorial on Game of Life simulations, which explains the concepts
Also allowing user to experiment on a Game of Life grid throughout tutorial.

http://www.sciam.com/1999/0499issue/0499profile.html
Scientific American article on John Conway, inventor of the Game of Life
April 1999 interview with John Conway himself
Includes details of some of his other discoveries and interests.

http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/lifemus.htm
Unusual article about applying Conway's Game of Life to writing music.

http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~dbell/
Several articles written by the site's author about the Game of Life in general
And especially articles about spaceship patterns.

Game of Life Catalogues

http://home.interserv.com/~mniemiec/lifeterm.htm
Comprehensive catalogue of various shapes, explaining key attributes of each shape
Also list of major people influencing Game of Life research ( eg which patterns they found)
However, there is no actual imlementation of grid.

Game Of Life Simulations

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/xliu/life.html
Slightly slow Java based Game of Life simulation
Allows user usual features
Plus choose to set a crowding limit, and a lone limit.

http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
Nice clear grid of Game of Life showing the number of generations advanced through.

http://www.math.kth.se/~gunnarj/LIFE/WLIF/wlcframes.html
Pages on, and two applets about the Game of Life in Black and White/ the Immigration Game
Also the Rainbow Game of Life, with cells having different colours to denote different stages in the cell's life.

http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Life32.html
Sophisticated simulation for Windows 95/98/NT
Requires extensive downloading, and preferably installing/having DirectX
Features included are skipping back as well as forward a generation, and user definable rules.

http://www.trevorrow.com/lifelab/index.html
Life Lab is a shareware program
Requires downloading
Allows user to view and edit patterns, paste from clip board, search for patterns and expand the grid if it gets too small
Also allows user to zoom in and out.

http://www.tech.org/~stuart/life/life.html
Game of Life checkbox implemented simulation
Loading a little slow, and somewhat difficult to get a sense of cells dying/being born
Although interesting as unusual implementation
Includes some set patterns, and also allows user to define their own too.

http://www.students.cs.uu.nl/~smotterl/conway/index.htm
Game of Life applet allowing user to generate random configurations
Also allows user to zoom in and out.

General Boid Information / Articles

http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
Craig Reynolds (the originator of the concept of boids) boid home page
A must, with helpful diagrams explaining the concepts of separation, alignment and steering
Some history of boids in relative to ALife
A detailed links section
Dramatic 3D boid applet

http://boulder.earthnet.net/~leserman/boids/JonathansPaper.html
Paper on whether flocking behaviour of birds is a decentralised behaviour
Included is standard type of boid applet
Also results when tested with various parameters
Some Java Source code

http://www.sciam.com/2000/1100issue/1100amsci.html
Scientific American Article on Boids
Moves on from general commments to discuss on Arial Dolan's applet in particular
Then some discussion of the future use of the boid simluation.

Boid Simulations

http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
Craig Reynolds (the originator of the concept of boids) boid page, including his own boid applet
Also some text on boids

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA009508/Java/Boids/boids.html
Boid Simulation that allows user to see trails of where each boid has been, and several other parameters
Slight disadvantage is that some downloading is required for optimal performance
However the basic effect can still be seen without any downloading.

http://library.thinkquest.org/2966/Alife/Boids/?tqskip=1
Boid Simulation involving two different flocks and obstacle avoidance
Allows user to mouse insert barriers which the birds must avoid
Also, two different species of birds, each species is drawn to its own kind and tries to move away from the other species
Java Source Code avabile

http://www.discovery.com/area/science/life/life1.3.html
Boid Simulation allowing user to switch on/off alignment, cohesion and separation

http://www.aridolan.com/JavaFloys.html
Three different versions of boid simulation:

http://www.nl.vergenet.net/~conrad/java/Boids/example.html
Flapping Birds Boid Simulation
Flapping birds, complete with shadows shown against watercolour background
Also detailed explanation, and pseudocode.

http://www.codepuppies.com/~steve/aqua.html
Steve's Aquarium: 3D boid simulation of a fish tank
Demonstrates predator/prey situation with a shark who tries to eat the fish
Also detailed explanation, and pseudocode.

http://www.digitalbiology.com/contents/example6.html
Fish Tank: 3D boid model with nice animation
Fish are attracted to food flakes that periodically fall from the top of the aquarium
Alternatively, the user can mouse position flakes
User can also alter the number of fish in the tank.

Other Artificial Life Simulations

http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~tona/alife/alife.html
Alife Playroom: 5 Alife simulations in Visual Basis
Downloading of VB files required
Simulations are:

http://www.isd.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra
Tierra, the famed artificial universe created by Thomas Ray
More details on this simulation can be found within the General ALife Tutorial in this site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/alife/
BBC's ALife web site
Contains general information on alife
Also a simplified version of Biotopia

http://www.agentland.com/cgi-bin/relocation.cgi?http://www.agentland.com/6Artificial_Life/Worlds/
Link to dowload Biotopia II, version 2.1
Arguably the best and more sophisticated ALife sim going,
If you haven't tried it, you haven't lived...

http://alife.nerdhero.org/anthony/biotopia/doc.html
Contains documentation for Biotopia II,
How to use it, patterns etc
Very clear to understand, and pretty much essential if you're going to try Biotopia II