SquareGarden

This is just another little AI screensaver I wrote to while away a rainy day. It started as an experiment in cellular automata, and once it started generating pictures like the below screenshot, I decided it might be a nice screensaver.

The images are generated by repeatedly dividing the screen, using an evolving ruleset to determine how to color the segments as they divide. The result is generally an interesting fractal sort of thing. Unfortunately, it's pretty tough to come up with an algorithm that determines which shapes are "interesting"; the system that it uses is some convoluted product of the percentage of the screen that's colored in, the number of shapes on the screen, and the perimeter of those shapes.

Windows installation instructions:

1. Locate your system directory, which is where screensaver (*.scr) files go. On most systems this directory is either C:\WINNT\System32 or C:\Windows\System32.
2. Save SquareGarden.scr in your system directory.
3. Right-click on your desktop background and choose "Properties" to get the Display Properties dialog. The "Screensavers" tab will now have an entry for "SquareGarden" - choose this and you're done.

There are at present no configuration options or anything. Just fire it up and watch it go.

Contact me: spamwise at gmail dot com. Questions, suggestions, and feedback welcomed. Especially positive feedback.

This page last updated on $Date: 2004/12/23 $.

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