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lib/App/GUI/Cellgraph.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

an action subrule is the increase of the activity value by an amount
that is different for any subrule that can have its own result state.
This amount of increase is usually but doesn't have to be positive.
There is also another amount which is usually negative and which decreases
the activity value of all cells each round. This decrease value is labeled
here B<Change> and has to be negative in order to decrease all activity
values. Then there is also a B<Spread> value, which is set to zero per
default. If set to two, the a cell can influence the activity value of
the neext two neigbours on the left and right. How much will also
determined in the action rule tab. Since ever ection rule has also
associated a second value. This second value defines how much a cell
can influence its outer most neighbours (which value gets added to them).
The neighbours in between the out most neighbour and the pivotal cell
get influence by an amount that is linearly interpolated.


The bottom section is about visual settings, which sometimes are not just
cosmetic. The B<Direction> helps you to draw completely different pictures
with way more symmetry. If set to I<top_down> (default) the picture gets
painted as described in the L</Mechanics> paragraph (above). But if you
set it to I<outside_in>, then you will see only a triangular slice of the
previous pattern, painted four times. Every outer edge of the square shaped
map will be the first row, displaying the same pattern and the computation
will grow toward the center. The option I<inside_out> is a kinda opposite.
Here it starts in the center of the grid growing outward in all four
directions. If you deactivate B<Fill>, each tile is no longer filled by
the state color. Instead only two small lines get drawn. B<Grid Style>
offers three options: I<lines>, I<gaps> and I<no>. The first (default)
option draws thin grey lines between the cells. These lines are white if
I<gaps> is chosen. And there will be I<no> gaps between the tiles if
that option is selected . And B<Cell Size> simply defines how many pixel
a tile edge is long.


=head2 Starting Row

=for HTML <p>
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lichtkind/App-GUI-Cellgraph/main/example/POD/GUIstart6.png" alt="" width="85%" height="85%">
</p>

This tab contains settings that define the start values - the states
and activity values of all cells in the starting row. The upper part is
about the cell states and the lower part about the activity values.
Since both parts parallel each other, lets explain them in one go.


Central in the upper and lower part are 20 cells that change their state
by left or right clicking on them. You either cycle that way through the
cell states or increase and decrease the activity value by steps of 0.2.

Above the cell row you can read the summary of the selected values.
Trailing zero's will get removed and to fit the value into the summary,
each activity value will be multiplied by 5, so that 5 stands for an
activity value of 1.0 (the maximum) of this cell and a 0 for 0 activity.
The selected values will be placed into the center of the starting row
in the drawing. Unless - you click on the B<Repeat> option. Then the
chosen patter gets repeated until the first row is full. Right beside
the summary display are a few buttons that trigger changes in the starting
row values. The B<1> always (also in other panels) resets the default values.
And B<?> always triggers a random value generator on all cells for happy
accidents. In addition to that there are also the buttons with arrows on it.
They just the summary value up or down, in order to give you the next or
previous start configuration.


=head2 State Rules

=for HTML <p>
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lichtkind/App-GUI-Cellgraph/main/example/POD/GUIrules7.png" alt="" width="85%" height="85%">
</p>

This tab contains settings that define the transfer function of cell states.
The upper part is very similar to the previous tab containing a summary
value and several buttons that trigger complex changes. Below that is a
list of all distinct subrules (please check the second paragraph in chapter
about the "general settings" tab). On the right side of each arrow is
one cell. By clicking in with left or right you cycle through its states.
This way you change the result of that subrule. If you see that subrules
are missing, please use the scrollwheel on you mouse or the scrollbar on
the right margin of the window, to unveil the hidden subrules. Right
beside each subrule result is also a text field with a number. It shows
how many times this subrule was applied in the picture. This might give
you hints about the structure of the composition but also where the bottle
necks are and what to change to get a more interesting drawing. For instance:
if behind a subrule is a count of zero - this sub rule was never applied
and changing it will to change the outcome. But changing the result with
a high count might change the picture drastically.

The number in the text field is the number of the currently selected rule,
as Steve Wolfram used them. Right beside the text field are two sets of
arrows. The closer one count the rule number up and down, and changes the
subrule result states accordingly. The next pair of buttons are undo and
redo. They migh be disabled when undo or redo is not possible.

Below the first row is a second row of buttons. These bring forward a
rule that has a relation to the current one. Only exception is the rightmost
button with an B<?> that again triggers a random rule. The pair of buttons
with arrows just do rotate the subrule results to the left (down) or right (up).
The B<%> button flips the result list so the first subrule will get the
result of the last and so forth. By pushing the next button - symmetric
partner (like the input patterns '001' and '100') will exchange their results.
This will only have an effect, when state rule selection (second row in the
general settings) is set to "I<all>". And lastly the B<!> button inverts
every subrule result. If a cell can have 5 states (0..4) and the current
subrule result is 1, it will then switch to 3, since 4 - 1 = 3. 4 woud
switch to zero and a state of 2 would not change because 4 - 2 = 2.


=head2 Action Rules

=for HTML <p>
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lichtkind/App-GUI-Cellgraph/main/example/POD/GUIaction7.png" alt="" width="85%" height="85%">
</p>

This tab parallels the previous even more, by also listing all subrules.
But here you can dial in the consequent activity value gain (right beside
the => arrow) and activity value gain spread of each subrule (rightmost
in each subrul row). The logic behind the activity values and their
changes is explained in detail in the third paragraph in the chapter
about the "I<General Settings>" tab.

lib/App/GUI/Cellgraph.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

displayed there into the currently selected set push C<Save>. Please
keep in mind this will overwrite whatever was there before. To prevent
this push C<New> to save the currently used colors into a new set.
The name of the new set will be requested via dialog. If you type in an
already used name it will ask again til the name is unique or you press
C<Cancel>. C<Del> just deletes the currently selected color set.

The second section from top contains three buttons that are just functions
calculating new colors based up the colors in the section below. The result
will be also inserted in the row below. The three values beside the buttons
are just arguments to the functions. The gap in this row is by intention,
since both buttons on the left part have this one value on the left as
argument and the third button on the right has the two arguments on the right.
C<Gray> is the is the simplest function, since it produces just a gray
gradient from white as (the leftmost) color 0 to black, stretching over
all currently used states. The only argument (dynamics) has the default
value of 1, which results in a linear gradient. Larger values let it lean
to the right and smaller to the left - meaning that the difference between
the first and second color on the left is the largest, becoming smaller
and smaller toward the left end. C<Gradient> does almost the same, but
uses the leftmost and current (highlighted by arrow) color as input
and computes such a gradient between them. C<Complement> computes
complementary colors to the currently highlighted and does also fill
them into the positions from the left most to the current. The two
arguments are maximal variation in saturation and lightness.

As already mentioned the third sections displays the currently used colors.
The left most color represents state 0, the one right beside is state 1
and so on. Colored squares with an big I<X> below are not currently used.
(Set the amount of currently used states in the I<Global> panel.)
Any click on a color square will select this color as the current one.
It gets highlighted by an arrow below and the next sections always refer
to this current color.

The fourth section allows you to tweak the current color by changing its
red, green or blue component (rows I<R> I<G> and I<B>). The next three
rows are about H(ue) (which color on rainbow), S(saturation) (from grey
to most colorful) and L(ightness) (black to color to white). In each
row you can either insert the value numbers directly by double clicking
the number display and typing it. This value can be incresed or decreased
by clicking the C<+> and C<-> buttons or by moving the slider on the right.

The fifth section works almost like the first. It is a store for single
colors, that loads or stores the currently highlighted color. The only
difference is that there is no C<New> button, since every saved color
will always get a new name.

=head2 Menu

The upmost menu bar has only three very simple menus.
Please not that each menu shows which key combination triggers the same
command and while hovering over an menu item you see a short help text
the left status bar field.

The first menu is for loading and storing setting files with arbitrary
names. Also a sub menu allows a quick load of the recently used files.
The first entry lets you reset the whole program to the starting state
and the last is just to exit (safely with saving the configs).

The second menu has only two commands for saving the grin into a image file.
It can have an arbitrary name - the ending I<PNG>, I<JPG> or I<SVG> decides
the format. The submenu above sets the image size. Please note that if
you choose a larger image than shown, a larger grid will be computed.
If you want larger squares, please change that in the settings.

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<App::GUI::Harmonograph>

L<App::GUI::Juliagraph>

L<App::GUI::Sierpingraph>

L<App::GUI::Spirograph>

=head1 AUTHOR

Herbert Breunung (lichtkind@cpan.org)

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright(c) 2022-25 by Herbert Breunung

All rights reserved.
This program is free software and can be used and distributed
under the GPL 3 licence.

=cut