Tetrahedron Swarm

In my data visualization class, my group partner Niels Kasch and I have been working on a swarm visualization program (Niels has done most of the programming). It's not quite done yet, so a description of the software will come at a later date. I did however, want to show off one of my favorite domains: the three-dimensional tetrahedron swarm.


A high quality video of the tetrahedra (6.3mb quicktime) is available.


Here are some screenshots:




The shape is formed by agents adhering to the following procedure.

First, four corners are selected by the swarm via a simple election algorithm.
The agents follow the following rules:

• If a corner, be attracted to the three other corners very slightly.


• If not a corner, be attracted to the two closest corners with great, but equal, strength. That is, the output force vector of this rule is the sum of two vectors of magnitude f. Note that when an agent is on the line formed by its two closest corners, the forces cancel each other out.


• Avoid any agents that get too close.

The behavior can be changed pretty easily. With only three corners (instead of four), a triangle is formed. With four corners, but corners are only attracted to the two closest corners, a square is formed. More complex shapes are hard to do with these sets of rules. However, more rules (such as forming a circle) can be added to make the edges more robust.

It is amazing that these simple rules result in such neat behavior. This is what made me interested in this topic.