Swarm Art in the Browser with boids4R • ggWebGL

Swarm Art in the Browser

ggWebGL can render swarm art in the browser from renderer-neutral boids4R simulations. Compact schools, predator avoidance, obstacle corridors, murmurations, and mixed-species flocks become animated point/vector timelines that can be panned, zoomed, scrubbed, and inspected in WebGL.

The live examples are split across smaller articles so the generated pkgdown HTML files stay below repository hosting limits. The examples remain opt-in: live WebGL widgets are disabled during CRAN, package checks, and CI. Rich local or pkgdown rendering requires both GGWEBGL_EVAL_COVERAGE_VIGNETTE=true and GGWEBGL_EVAL_LIVE_WIDGETS=true.

Boundary

The ownership split is deliberately narrow:

boids4R owns simulation semantics: flocking state, rules, scenarios, and frame export.
boids4R::as_ggwebgl_spec() translates simulation frames into renderer primitives and owns boid display defaults.
ggWebGL owns WebGL rendering: the htmlwidget, point and vector primitives, shader choice, timeline controls, hover, pan, zoom, and 3D orbit interaction.

boids4R is a suggested package for ggWebGL. When it is unavailable, the split articles still build and report that live animation widgets were skipped.

boids4r_available <- requireNamespace("boids4R", quietly = TRUE)
if (!boids4r_available) {
  cat("boids4R is unavailable, so live boids animations are skipped.\n")
}

Split Articles

2D swarm scenarios: schooling, obstacle corridor, and predator avoidance examples.
3D swarm scenarios: murmuration and mixed-species 3D examples with orbit camera interaction.
Custom corridor workflow: a low-level boids4R construction comparing baseline and stronger avoidance parameters.

Regeneration

The same pattern can be used from an installed package:

sim <- boids4R::boids_scenario("mixed_species_3d", n = 210, steps = 240, seed = 115)
spec <- ggWebGL:::ggwebgl_boids_display_spec(
  sim,
  vector_mode = "current",
  vector_colour_mode = "species",
  obstacle_mode = "ring",
  trail = "recent",
  trail_length = 32,
  shader = "default"
)
ggWebGL::ggWebGL(spec, height = 540)