hoca: an Higher-Order Cellular Automata Python Library

Overview

Advertising hoca

It would be greatly appreciated by the authors if the images and other productions made with the hoca library were accompanied by a citation naming it; something like:
"This was produced with the hoca library (https://pypi.org/project/hoca/)".

Installation

The latest version of hoca is installed via a standard pip command:

pip install hoca

Population classes

hoca.core.automata_framework.Population

The Population class is abstract. It's the root of the population classes hierarchy.

hoca.core.BasicPopulation

BasicPopulation class inherits of the Population class and implements the base functionalities of a population:

• It instanciates the automata,
• it controls if the died automata are respawned for the next generation,
• it may stop the execution of the automata population after a predefined number of generations,
• it allows to shuffle the automata's order of execution.

hoca.monitor.CallbackPopulation

CallbackPopulation class inherits of the BasicPopulation class. It provides a way to monitor the automata population throughout the successive generations.

CallbackPopulation module contains both the CallbackPopulation population class and the Callback class hierachy.

Fields

Fields are data structures which hold the source data process by an automata population and the result data produced by them. Fields can also be both source and result at the same time. This way the automata can modify the field in place.
Field data structure features are defined in the hoca.core.automata_framework.Field class (which is abstract). The implementation is in hoca.core.ImageField.
In order to do their work, one must provide appropriate fields to the automata population. The best and simplest way to prepare the fields, is to call the build_field_dict() class method of the automata class.

The build_field_dict() returns a dictionary with one entry per field.

Fields have an IOMode which defines if they are:
- readable: Field.IOMode.IN - writable: Field.IOMode.OUT - readable and writable: Field.IOMode.INOUT

Contribute !

hoca is an open-source library written at Villa Arson and I3S and released on GitHub under the LGPLv3 license. The library is copyrighted by its contributors (see source file headers).

There is a lot of room for improvements, everyone is welcome to contribute if you find any bug or have idea for new features!