Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!ginosko!usc!apple!well!shf
From: shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Hexagonal Pixels
Summary: Simulation
Message-ID: <14012@well.UUCP>
Date: 9 Oct 89 07:58:35 GMT
References: <2477@canisius.UUCP> <17400010@hpfcdj.HP.COM> <307@unizh.UUCP> <5351@portia.Stanford.EDU> <893@scaup.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Reply-To: shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson)
Organization: The Blue Planet
Lines: 17

+-- nad@cl.cam.ac.uk (Neil Dodgson) writes:
| In article <5351@portia.Stanford.EDU> rick@hanauma.UUCP (Richard Ottolini) writes:
| >Hexagonal grids are important for differential equation and cellula automata
| >grids because they are more isotropic than rectangular grids (less funny
| >stuff at 45-degree angles). [...]
| Wouldn't a hexagonal grid still give you "funny stuff" at 30-degree angles?

No.  The reason some cell-automata simulations use hexagonal packing for 
their cell positions is that the distance between cell centers is the same
for all the nearest neighbors.  The perimeter distance shared between
neighbors is also uniform.  This is presumably the same reason the war-
gamers use them for their tactical simulations.  You get around this
nonsense that a diagonal move is sqrt(2) longer than a horizontal or
vertical move.
-- 
		Stuart Ferguson		(shf@well.UUCP)
		Action by HAVOC		(ferguson@metaphor.com)