your-article-is-too-long - Tumblr blog

[your-article-is-too-long]

How Does Fire Spread?

This is supplementary material for my Triplebyte blog post, “How Does Fire Spread?”

The following code creates a cellular automaton forest fire model in Python. I added so many comments to this code that the blog post became MASSIVE and the code block looked ridiculous, so I had to trim it down.

… but what if someone NEEDS it?

# The NumPy library is used to generate random numbers in the model. import numpy as np # The Matplotlib library is used to visualize the forest fire animation. import matplotlib.pyplot as plt from matplotlib import animation from matplotlib import colors # A given cell has 8 neighbors: 1 above, 1 below, 1 to the left, 1 to the right, # and 4 diagonally. The 8 sets of parentheses correspond to the locations of the 8 # neighboring cells. neighborhood = ((-1,-1), (-1,0), (-1,1), (0,-1), (0, 1), (1,-1), (1,0), (1,1)) # Assigns value 0 to EMPTY, 1 to TREE, and 2 to FIRE. Each cell in the grid is # assigned one of these values. EMPTY, TREE, FIRE = 0, 1, 2 # colors_list contains colors used in the visualization: brown for EMPTY, # dark green for TREE, and orange for FIRE. Note that the list must be 1 larger # than the number of different values in the array. Also note that the 4th entry # (‘orange’) dictates the color of the fire. colors_list = [(0.2,0,0), (0,0.5,0), (1,0,0), 'orange'] cmap = colors.ListedColormap(colors_list) # The bounds list must also be one larger than the number of different values in # the grid array. bounds = [0,1,2,3] # Maps the colors in colors_list to bins defined by bounds; data within a bin # is mapped to the color with the same index. norm = colors.BoundaryNorm(bounds, cmap.N) # The function firerules iterates the forest fire model according to the 4 model # rules outlined in the text. def firerules(X): # X1 is the future state of the forest; ny and nx (defined as 100 later in the # code) represeent the number of cells in the x and y directions, so X1 is an # array of 0s with 100 rows and 100 columns). # RULE 1 OF THE MODEL is handled by setting X1 to 0 initially and having no # rules that update FIRE cells. X1 = np.zeros((ny, nx)) # For all indices on the grid excluding the border region (which is always empty). # Note that Python is 0-indexed. for ix in range(1,nx-1): for iy in range(1,ny-1): # THIS CORRESPONDS TO RULE 4 OF THE MODEL. If the current value at # the index is 0 (EMPTY), roll the dice (np.random.random()); if the # output float value <= p (the probability of a tree being growing), # the future value at the index becomes 1 (i.e., the cell transitions # from EMPTY to TREE). if X[iy,ix] == EMPTY and np.random.random() <= p: X1[iy,ix] = TREE # THIS CORRESPONDS TO RULE 2 OF THE MODEL. # If any of the 8 neighbors of a cell are burning (FIRE), the cell # (currently TREE) becomes FIRE. if X[iy,ix] == TREE: X1[iy,ix] = TREE # To examine neighbors for fire, assign dx and dy to the # indices that make up the coordinates in neighborhood. E.g., for # the 2nd coordinate in neighborhood (-1, 0), dx is -1 and dy is 0. for dx,dy in neighborhood: if X[iy+dy,ix+dx] == FIRE: X1[iy,ix] = FIRE break # THIS CORRESPONDS TO RULE 3 OF THE MODEL. # If no neighbors are burning, roll the dice (np.random.random()); # if the output float is <= f (the probability of a lightning # strike), the cell becomes FIRE. else: if np.random.random() <= f: X1[iy,ix] = FIRE return X1 # The initial fraction of the forest occupied by trees. forest_fraction = 0.2 # p is the probability of a tree growing in an empty cell; f is the probability of # a lightning strike. p, f = 0.05, 0.001 # Forest size (number of cells in x and y directions). nx, ny = 100, 100 # Initialize the forest grid. X can be thought of as the current state. Make X an # array of 0s. X = np.zeros((ny, nx)) # X[1:ny-1, 1:nx-1] grabs the subset of X from indices 1-99 EXCLUDING 99. Since 0 is # the index, this excludes 2 rows and 2 columns (the border). # np.random.randint(0, 2, size=(ny-2, nx-2)) randomly assigns all non-border cells # 0 or 1 (2, the upper limit, is excluded). Since the border (2 rows and 2 columns) # is excluded, size=(ny-2, nx-2). X[1:ny-1, 1:nx-1] = np.random.randint(0, 2, size=(ny-2, nx-2)) # This ensures that the number of 1s in the array is below the threshold established # by forest_fraction. Note that random.random normally returns floats between # 0 and 1, but this was initialized with integers in the previous line of code. X[1:ny-1, 1:nx-1] = np.random.random(size=(ny-2, nx-2)) < forest_fraction # Adjusts the size of the figure. fig = plt.figure(figsize=(25/3, 6.25)) # Creates 1x1 grid subplot. ax = fig.add_subplot(111) # Turns off the x and y axis. ax.set_axis_off() # The matplotlib function imshow() creates an image from a 2D numpy array with 1 # square for each array element. X is the data of the image; cmap is a colormap; # norm maps the data to colormap colors. im = ax.imshow(X, cmap=cmap, norm=norm) #, interpolation='nearest') # The animate function is called to produce a frame for each generation. def animate(i): im.set_data(animate.X) animate.X = firerules(animate.X) # Binds the grid to the identifier X in the animate function's namespace. animate.X = X # Interval between frames (ms). interval = 100 # animation.FuncAnimation makes an animation by repeatedly calling a function func; # fig is the figure object used to resize, etc.; animate is the callable function # called at each frame; interval is the delay between frames (in ms). anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, animate, interval=interval) # Display the animated figure plt.show()