Rule Strata: The Aesthetic Potential of Layered Color Generation in Cellular Automata

In my experiments so far, I’ve explored multi-color palettes with gradients, which allowed me to incorporate different colors from the top of the cellular grid to the bottom. But what if each rule generation uses a different color? I will call this a “layered generation of rules” for the cellular automata.

In the first layer, there will be the background color. Then, rules are generated for the first point in the top line of the grid, constituting the second layer and overwriting some of the cells of the underlying layer. Next, the subsequent rule is applied, overwriting the colors of the two previous layers, and so on.

I will continue to explore this concept with a series of cells in the middle of the top line. For this example, I will use five different colors.

Rule 18 of the 1D cellular automata with layered rule generation and multiple colors

Rule 54 of the 1D cellular automata with layered rule generation and multiple colors

Rule 30 of the 1D cellular automata with layered rule generation and multiple colors

Rule 57 of the 1D cellular automata with layered rule generation and multiple colors

Rule 73 of the 1D cellular automata with layered rule generation and multiple colors

Rule 105 of the 1D cellular automata with layered rule generation and multiple colors

Cellular automata is bringing me new surprises everyday.

Written by Iohannes — John Samuel.