[Tutor] ascii art

[Stephen Harris]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Yoo" <dyoo@hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu>
To: "Gil Tucker [ateliermobile]" <gil@ateliermobile.de>
Cc: "Tutor" <tutor@python.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2002 12:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Tutor] ascii art


> 
> 
> On Sun, 8 Sep 2002, Gil Tucker [ateliermobile] wrote:
> 
> >                      I am trying to make a program that can generate
> > random ascii art forms or designs. I have tried a few but they dont
> > work.Any tip or tips. Or warnings?
> 
> Hi Gil,
> 
> Can you show us some of the programs you've tried writing?  By not
> working, do you mean that you're just getting uninteresting pictures, or
> are there syntax errors?
> 
> 
> Steven Wolfram's book, "A new Kind of Science", has many examples of
> simple programs that produce random-but-pretty pictures.  For example:
> 
>     http://www.wolframscience.com/preview/nks_pages/?NKS0032.gif
> 
> shows a neat triangle picture sort of thing.  *grin*
> 
> Here's a Python program that generates this image:
> 
> 
> ######
> """A small ascii-art program in Python.
> 
> Danny Yoo (dyoo@hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu)
> 
> See:
> 
>     http://www.wolframscience.com/preview/nks_pages/?NKS0032.gif
> 
> and Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" for more information about this
> fascinating topic.
> 
> """
> 
> import sys
> 
> 
> """Wolfram's automaton uses eight rules for generating the next row of
> output.  Let's take a look at them."""
> RULE_100 = { (1, 1, 1) : 0,
>              (1, 1, 0) : 1,
>              (1, 0, 1) : 1,
>              (1, 0, 0) : 0,
>              (0, 1, 1) : 1,
>              (0, 1, 0) : 1,
>              (0, 0, 1) : 1,
>              (0, 0, 0) : 0 }
> 
> 
> def drawRow(row):
>     for character in row:
>         if character: sys.stdout.write('O')
>         else: sys.stdout.write('.')
>     sys.stdout.write('\n')
> 
> 
> STARTING_ROW = [0]*2 + [0]*70 + [1] + [0]*2
> 
> def applyRuleOnRow(rule, row):
>     new_row = [0]
>     for i in range(1, len(row)-1):
>         triple = (row[i-1], row[i], row[i+1])
>         new_row.append(rule[triple])
>     new_row.append(0)
>     return new_row
> 
> 
> if __name__ == '__main__':
>     row = STARTING_ROW
>     for i in range(70):
>         drawRow(row)
>         row = applyRuleOnRow(RULE_100, row)
> ######
> 
> 
> 
> I hope this sparks some interest!  Good luck to you!
>
 
I like it! I just cut and pasted the code and it worked.
There has been discussion about the proof of universality
for rule 110 (the code above) and how best to run .nb if
you dont want to pay for Mathematica. I guess you convert it.

Regards,
Stephen