YABI – Yet Another Boids Implementation (simulation of flocking animals)

Just before I started my paternity leave I saw a documentary about flocking animals and how these can be modeled in computer simulation. I found it very exciting and eagerly thought I could implement a simulation in a days work. I, however, quite underestimated the free time available while on paternity leave and the project extended in to many pieces spread over a few weeks. First a little teaser from the animation I made using python and Matplotlib, where the Boids (birds, fish or flying sheep ..) are in blue and predators are in red:

The definition of the term Boids and the rules that describes the motion of flock animals are excellently described on Wikipedia:

Boids is an artificial life program, developed by Craig Reynolds in 1986, which simulates the flocking behaviour of birds. His paper on this topic was published in 1987 in the proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH conference. The name refers to a “bird-like object”, but its pronunciation evokes that of “bird” in a stereotypical New York accent.

As with most artificial life simulations, Boids is an example of emergent behavior; that is, the complexity of Boids arises from the interaction of individual agents (the boids, in this case) adhering to a set of simple rules. The rules applied in the simplest Boids world are as follows:

      Separation: steer to avoid crowding local flockmates
      Alignment: steer towards the average heading of local flockmates
      Cohesion: steer to move toward the average position (center of mass) of local flockmates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boids

Below a youtube video of a natural phenomenon called “Sort Sol”, Black sun, where a very large group of common starlings blackens the skies over Ribe in Denmark:

Animation using matplotlib and ffmpeg

The following video is the result of a run with 960 time steps, 400 boids and 5 predators. I have used several extra rules and the predators in this run are dumb in the sense that they move in a predefined pattern (the Trefoil Knot for those interested), but it is quite easy to make them hunt the boids as the code is there, but the weight for this rule is 0. The behavior of the boids are controlled by the weights of the rules relative to each other.

Python Implementaion

I have implemented the rules with animation in python using matplotlib and ffmpeg on Linux. The source is printed here, but can also be downloaded directly:
boids-animation.py 8.0KB.

#!/usr/bin/python
 
import numpy
import time
import sys
import math
 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as animation
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
 
 
#################
# Runtime parameters
NumberOfBoids       = 400
NumberOfPredators   = 5
Dimensions          = 3
MinSeparation       = 7
framespersecond     = 24
timesteps           = 10 #Should be divisible by framespersecond
 
# Predator settings
PredatorRadius      = 25
PredatorSight       = 10
WeightCenterOfMassP = 0.00
WeightAttackBoid    = 0 #2
WeightRandomP       = 0.5 #1
WeightKnot          = 2
 
# Boids behavior - weight on rules
WeightCenterOfMass  = 0.03
WeightSeparation    = 1
WeightAlignment     = 0.125
WeightRandom        = 0.0
WeightAvoidPredator = 1
WeightCenter        = 0.02 #0.03
 
MaxVelocityP        = 1
MaxVelocity         = 1
center              = 50*numpy.ones(Dimensions)
###########
 
class boid:
    """This class defines the boid and the rules of behavoir"""
    def __init__(self, dimension, index):
        self.index  = index
        self.dim    = dimension
        self.pos    = numpy.random.uniform(0,100,self.dim)
        self.vel    = numpy.zeros(self.dim)
        self.size   = numpy.random.rand(1)
 
    def limitvelocity(self,maxvel):
        """Limiting the speed to avoid unphysical jerks in motion"""
        if numpy.linalg.norm(self.vel) > maxvel:
            self.vel = (self.vel/numpy.linalg.norm(self.vel))*maxvel
 
def normalize(vector):
    """Normalizes a <span class="hiddenGrammarError" pre="">vector"""
    vector</span> = vector/numpy.linalg.norm(vector)
    return vector
 
def centerofpos(flock):
    """Calculates the 'center of mass' for the flock of boids"""
    com = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)   
    for dim in range(Dimensions):
        for boid in flock:
            com[dim] = com[dim] + boid.pos[dim]
        com[dim] = com[dim]/len(flock)
    return com
 
def centerofvel(flock):
    """Calculates the mean velocity vector for the flock of boids"""
    cov = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)   
    for dim in range(Dimensions):
        for boid in flock:
            cov[dim] = cov[dim] + boid.vel[dim]
        cov[dim] = cov[dim]/len(flock)
    return cov
 
def plot_raw():
    """Sets up the basic plotting paramaters"""
    global ax
    ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
    ax.set_autoscale_on(False)
    ax.set_xlabel('X Axis')
    ax.set_ylabel('Y Axis')
    ax.set_zlabel('Z Axis')
    ax.set_xlim3d([0.0, 100.0])
    ax.set_ylim3d([0.0, 100.0])
    ax.set_zlim3d([0.0, 100.0])
 
def plot_init():
    """The initial draw"""
    plot_raw()
    com = centerofpos(flock)
    boidpos = numpy.zeros((NumberOfBoids, Dimensions))
    predpos = numpy.zeros((NumberOfPredators, Dimensions))
 
    for index,boid in enumerate(flock):
        boidpos[index]= boid.pos       
    bx = boidpos[:,0]
    by = boidpos[:,1]
    bz = boidpos[:,2] 
 
    for index,predator in enumerate(predators):
        predpos[index]= predator.pos       
    px = predpos[:,0]
    py = predpos[:,1]
    pz = predpos[:,2] 
 
def plot_update(timestep):
    """ This plot updates the plot with the new positions of the boids
    and predators"""
    fig.clf()
    plot_raw()
 
    # Execute a calculation of the next set of moves
    mainloop(timestep)
 
    # Plots the boids in space using matplotlib
    # http://matplotlib.org/examples/mplot3d/scatter3d_demo.html         
    boidpos = numpy.zeros((NumberOfBoids, Dimensions))
    predpos = numpy.zeros((NumberOfPredators, Dimensions))
 
    # Plot center of mass as a black dot
    com = centerofpos(flock)
    ax.scatter(com[0], com[1], com[2], color='black')
 
    # Plot boids as blue dots     
    for index,boid in enumerate(flock):
        boidpos[index]= boid.pos       
    bx = boidpos[:,0]
    by = boidpos[:,1]
    bz = boidpos[:,2] 
    ax.scatter(bx, by, bz, c='b')
 
    # Predators are red dots
    if len(predators) > 0:
        for index,predator in enumerate(predators):
            predpos[index]= predator.pos       
        px = predpos[:,0]
        py = predpos[:,1]
        pz = predpos[:,2] 
        ax.scatter(px, py, pz, s=100,color='red')      
 
def mainloop(timestep):
    """This is the calculation timeloop"""
    print "Timestep "+str(timestep)
 
    if len(predators) > 0:
        for predator in predators:
 
            # Predator RULE 1.  Cohesion - Steer to move towoards the center of mass
            prule1 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
            prule1 = (centerofpos(flock) - predator.pos)*WeightCenterOfMassP    
 
            # Predator RULE 2. (unused and now just a placeholder
            prule2 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
 
            # Predator RULE 3. Attack boids within range
            prule3 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
            for boid in flock:
                difference  = predator.pos - boid.pos
                distance    = numpy.linalg.norm(difference)
                if distance < PredatorSight:
                    prule3 = prule3 - normalize(difference)
            prule3 = prule3*WeightAttackBoid
 
            # Predator RULE 4. Move the predator around in smooth way around the center of the cube
            # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trefoil_knot
            prule4 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
            t = (timestep/float(timesteps))*4*math.pi + predator.index*(math.pi/4.0)
            if Dimensions == 3: 
                prule4[0] = (2.0+math.cos(3.0*t))*math.cos(2.0*t)
                prule4[1] = (2.0+math.cos(3.0*t))*math.sin(2.0*t)
                prule4[2] = math.sin(3*t)
            else:
                prule4 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
            prule4 = prule4 * WeightKnot
 
            # Move the predator
            predator.vel = prule1 + prule2 + prule3 + prule4
            predator.limitvelocity(MaxVelocityP)
            predator.pos = predator.pos + predator.vel
 
    for boid in flock:
 
        # Boid RULE 1. Cohesion - Steer to move towoards the center of mass
        rule1 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
        rule1 = (centerofpos(flock) - boid.pos)*WeightCenterOfMass
 
        # Boid RULE RULE 2. Separation - steer to avoid crowding local flockmates
        rule2 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
        for boid2 in flock:
            difference  = boid2.pos - boid.pos
            distance    = numpy.linalg.norm(difference)
            if distance < MinSeparation and boid2 != boid:
                rule2 = rule2 - normalize(difference)/distance
        rule2 = rule2*WeightSeparation 
 
        # Boid RULE 3. Alignment - Steer towards the average heading of local flockmates
        rule3 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
        rule3 = (centerofvel(flock) - boid.vel)*WeightAlignment
 
 
        # The following rules are custom rules just added for fun. 
        # Boid RULE 4. Try to move towards the center of the grid
        rule4 = (center - boid.pos)*WeightCenter
 
        # Boid RULE 5. Add some randomness
        rule5 = numpy.random.uniform(-1,1,Dimensions)*WeightRandom
 
        # Boid RULE 6. Avoid the predator
        if len(predators) > 0:
            rule6 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
            for predator in predators:
                difference  = predator.pos - boid.pos
                distance    = numpy.linalg.norm(difference)
                if distance < PredatorRadius:
                    rule6 = (rule6 - difference)*WeightAvoidPredator
        else:
            rule6 = numpy.zeros(Dimensions)
 
        # Move the boids
        boid.vel = rule1 + rule2 + rule3 + rule4 + rule5 + rule6
        boid.limitvelocity(MaxVelocity)
        boid.pos = boid.pos + boid.vel
 
 
 
#Generate the the flock of boids
flock           = [boid(Dimensions,count) for count in range(NumberOfBoids)]
 
if NumberOfPredators == 0:
    predators   = []    
else:
    predators   = [boid(Dimensions,count) for count in range(NumberOfPredators)]    
    # HACK - centered starting positions
    for predator in predators:
        predator.pos = numpy.random.uniform(45,55,Dimensions)
 
# Define the figure:
fig = plt.figure()
plot_raw()
 
anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, plot_update, init_func=plot_init,frames=timesteps, interval=20, blit=True)
anim.save('basic_animation.mp4', fps=framespersecond, codec='mpeg4', clear_temp=True, frame_prefix='_tmp')

References and further reading

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