From Rules to Palettes: Using Color as a Syntax for Cellular Automata

Motivation: Color as a “Type System” for Pictures If you have ever looked at a black-and-white cellular automaton that felt like pure static, you are not alone. Many classical diagrams of elementary rules compress rich structure into just two colors. As programmers, we already accept that types expose structure in code that is invisible in raw bytes. In this article, I will argue that well-designed color palettes can play a similar role for visual models of discrete systems such as cellular auto