# Cellular Automata based on pixelated images

**URL:** https://discourse.processing.org/t/cellular-automata-based-on-pixelated-images/14424
**Category:** Coding Questions
**Created:** [October 4, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/cellular-automata-based-on-pixelated-images/14424 "2019-10-04T17:40:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 6

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### Author: ![jeremydouglass](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/jeremydouglass/32/20_2.png) [@jeremydouglass](https://discourse.processing.org/u/jeremydouglass)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/cellular-automata-based-on-pixelated-images/14424/6 "2019-10-14T16:43:00Z")

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These two ideas – zooming photos, and zooming automata-fields – may be tricky to connect. How do the cellular automata interact with the photos? Is the photo the top level, and each pixel is a full game of life, and there are only two levels? If you run a CA algorithm on a photo, it stops being a photo almost immediately.

If you are interested in nested photos (without CA), you might want to check out this recent project:

> [@"2001: A Space Odyssey" retold using Processing](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864):
>
> Hello World and dear Processing community! Here’s my first Processing project I’d like to share with you guys. The idea: feed the program with a database of images calculate the average color of each image in the database feed the program with an input image rasterize/split the input image into several equal cells calculate the average color of each cell replace each cell with the next best color match from the database I was looking for something like this: [3f8fd3fd728eb2999fea62f4dac832…

For putting CA fields in an image, the main challenge is that, in order to “read” as b/w pixels, your images must either be mostly black or mostly white. So you might want two different display styles of sparse CAs – one with active black pixels on white, one with active white pixels on black.

If you want to cycle back and forth between photos and CAs, you could use the 2001 trick, only bounce – zoom from photo into CA, then zoom from CA out to a new photo, then in, then out. One “trick” used by the 2001 project is to arbitrarily replace the center pixel in the target photo with the next one in the sequence, so that any transition sequence is valid.

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