Python Playground

5

BOIDS: SIMULATING A FLOCK

Look closely at a flock of birds or a school of fish, and you’ll notice that although the groups are composed of individual creatures, the group as a whole seems to have a life of its own. The birds in a flock align with each other as they move and flow over and around obstacles. They break formation when disturbed or startled but then regroup, as if controlled by some larger force.

In 1986, Craig Reynolds created a realistic-looking simulation of the flocking behavior of birds called the Boids model. One remarkable thing about the Boids model (named after the stereotypical New Yorker’s pronunciation of the word birds ...