GitHub - andrewosh/cellarium: A playground for cellular automata
Hacker News
February 21, 2026
AI-Generated Deep Dive Summary
GitHub’s Cellarium is an innovative open-source project that brings cellular automata to life using Rust and GPU acceleration. The platform provides a unique environment for experimenting with complex systems by compiling Rust-based cell behavior into WGSL shaders, which run entirely on the GPU via wgpu. This approach allows users to define custom cell states, update rules, and visualize patterns in real time, making it a powerful tool for exploring emergent behaviors in fields like physics, biology, and artificial life.
Cellarium’s core functionality revolves around defining cell states using Rust structs, which are then packed into GPU textures. The platform supports various data types (f32, Vec2, Vec3, Vec4) and up to 8 textures per simulation, providing flexibility for complex cell behaviors. Users can define update rules using a subset of Rust, including arithmetic operations, comparisons, logic, and control flow. These rules are compiled into fragment shaders at compile time, enabling simultaneous updates across all cells without conflicts or visible intermediate states.
The project also introduces neighborhood models like Moore (8 adjacent cells) and von Neumann (4 cardinal directions), which determine how cells interact with their neighbors. Additionally, Cellarium supports runtime-tunable parameters, allowing users to adjust simulation constants live via a TUI or saved JSON files. This feature makes it easy to experiment with different behaviors without recompiling the code.
Cellarium’s unique approach matters because it bridges the gap between high-performance computing and interactive simulations. By leveraging Rust’s safety guarantees and GPU acceleration, the platform offers a modern alternative to traditional cellular automata tools. It is particularly valuable for researchers, educators, and developers interested in exploring complex systems, as it provides both visual feedback and underlying code
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Originally published on Hacker News on 2/21/2026