Cellular automata · spacetime

Life through time

Draw a starting generation on a square grid, then let Conway’s rule build upward. Each horizontal layer is one instant. The generation count keeps advancing while a rolling window turns motion, repetition, and extinction into solid geometry that you can rotate and inspect.

Build the first slice

Choose a seed or draw your own. Editing the flat grid pauses the simulation and starts a new history from generation zero.

Draw

Starting pattern Seed

Board Grid size Wrap opposite edges

With wrapping off, cells beyond the square are dead. With it on, the board is a torus.

Time axis

Speed 6 gen/s

History window 120 layers

Keep up to this many recent layers without stopping the evolution. Once full, the oldest layer drops away as a new one appears. Dense runs may retain fewer layers to keep the 3D view responsive.

Two views of one evolution

Space × space × time

Generation 0 · ready

Starting grid

Click or drag to edit generation 0.

Alive cells are light; dead cells are dark. Keyboard: arrows move, Space or Enter draws, A selects alive, E selects erase.

Rolling history

Drag: orbit · scroll/pinch: zoom · keys: arrows, +/−, 0

Generation 0

Living now 48

Visible voxels 48

Boundary Finite

How to read the stack. The bottom layer is the oldest generation currently visible; at first, it is the grid you drew. Conway’s B3/S23 rule produces each next layer: a dead cell is born with exactly three living neighbors, while a living cell survives with two or three. When the selected history window is full, the oldest layer falls away but the generation count continues. A still life forms straight pillars, an oscillator forms a repeating braid, and a glider leaves a diagonal trail because it moves through space as time rises.