Chemical Processor for Computation of Skeleton of Planar Shape

Abstract

In this paper we give a regular proof of the viability of the theory of reaction–diffusion computing. The test problem is to approximate the skeleton of a planar contour, i.e. select sites of centres of bitangent circles which lie wholly within the contour. We have designed both a cellular automaton model and a real prototype of a chemical processor that implement skeleton transformations. In the cellular automaton, segments of the discrete skeleton are computed via interactions of excitation waves, while in the chemical processor the underlying mechanism is the formation of Prussian blue in an agar gel film. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A brief history of liquid computers

“…BZ reaction is not the only chemical medium for unconventional computing. In mid-1990s Adamatzky and Tolmachiov developed prototypes of reaction-diffusion computing devices capable of approximation of Voronoi diagram of a planar point set [118] and calculation of a skeleton of a planar shape [25]. Several experimental laboratory prototypes of precipitating processors have been built for implementation of xor gate [20], computational of a skeleton of a planar shape [20] and Voronoi diagram [49].…”

Teaching natural computation

“…Because many millions of such molecules can be contained and processed in a small space, it is possible to carry out massively parallel computations on the information represented in these molecules. Another advance is in the application of interactions between diffusing liquids to solve geometric problems [1,2].…”

“…One particular difficulty (which we have personally experienced) is that many computer science students have not studied pure science subjects, or relevant mathematics, to a very high level 1 . This means that it is difficult to teach such such topics.…”

Sequential Voronoi Diagram Calculations using Simple Chemical Reactions

“…The formation of Voronoi diagrams in chemical systems with one reagent and one substrate was first reported by (Tolmachiev & Adamatzky, 1996). This and similar reactions were utilized as chemical processors for the computation of the shortest obstacle free path , the skeletonization of a planar shape (Adamatzky & Tolmachiev, 1997;Adamatzky et al, 2002) and the construction of a prototype XOR gate (Adamatzky & de Lacy Costello, 2002). The formation of weighted Voronoi diagrams from two reagents reacted in parallel on one substrate were first reported in (de Lacy Costello, 2003).…”