An outer-totalistic cellular automaton is a generalization of the totalistic cellular automaton. Totalistic rules are a proper superset of outer-totalistic rules. In particular, consider the cellular automaton rule
so that the center cell with value changes to value
when bordered by cells with values
and
. The cells with values
and
are called the outer cells.
In a totalistic cellular automatic, the total value of the cells (
) is considered, and for each possible
value of that total, the rule output is given. So a list of
entries, each from 0 to
are needed.
In an outer-totalistic cellular automaton, both the center cell value (
) and the outer total
(
) are considered. Note these are trivially
independent quantities. For each combination of the center value
and outer-total
, the rule output is given. So a matrix with
rows and
columns is needed with entries each 0 to
.
This can be generalized to more outer cells (e.g., two on each side), to two dimensions, and so on.
A -color
outer-totalistic cellular automaton can be generated in the Wolfram
Language using
CellularAutomaton[{n, {k, {k, 1, k}}, 1}, init, steps, {All, All}]
Similarly, 9-cell two-dimensional outer totalistic rules can be given for a single row through time and the last step, respectively, by
First /@ CellularAutomaton[{n, {k, {{k, k, k}, {k, 1, k}, {k, k, k}}}, {1, 1} }, init, steps, {All, {0}, All}] First[CellularAutomaton[{n, {k, {{k, k, k}, {k, 1, k}, {k, k, k}}}, {1, 1} }, init, steps, {-1, All, All}]]