Multimedia at Work

(CA), and in general parallel generative devices such as Lindenmayer systems, to produce images, fractals, growth patterns in two dimensions, and sound. They usually implement these models on special-purpose architectures that often depend on the type of presentation being generated. (See the “Related Work” sidebar for more details about previous research.) We have developed our own prototype for generating content, called Extended Cellular Automata with Pluggable Multimedia Elements (ExcapeMe). This prototype acts as an open environment that lets users execute CA in three dimensions and manage simultaneous rendering of CA using different forms of presentation. In principle, we can attach any type of multimedia presentation as a plug-in. The environment already supports 1D, 2D, 2.5D, and 3D presentations, and we can apply sound rendering to CA of any dimension. The environment also supports interactively defining, editing, and executing CA as well as defining the mapping between the CA configurations and their actual rendering. Prospective users include researchers and students interested in studying CA dynamics, either to explore a given law’s characteristics or use CA as simulation tools to observe the possible evolutions of a modeled system. In particular, researchers can use the different types of representation we provide to gain insight into such evolutions. Another class of users is computer artists interested in generating visual or sound patterns for performances. Because we endowed ExcapeMe with network communication mechanisms, it also acts as a source of parameter configurations for other applications. Besides letting us use several dimensions, both in defining the universe and in its pictorial representation, ExcapeMe exploits some extensions to the mathematical model. (See the “Cellular Automata and ExcapeMe Extensions” sidebar for more specifics.)