>Cool demo, but to me they now look less like boids and more like skeeters
>or gnats. What happened to the elegant parallel aerobatics that the old
>version had, and that I regularly see in real flocks?
>
>  e-e
>  =J= a  y

=J= a y:

Take a look at my program VBoid, namely:

http://sperling.com/vboid.sit

You may have to let the demo run a few times to fully appreciate 
what's happening.

You see, I took the rules of boids and made a few changes. Surprising 
to me, was that the changes I made produced a flock that assumed a V 
when flying.

It just goes to demonstrate that when birds are flying somewhere 
specific, all they have to do is to figure out where the center of 
the flock is, fly towards it, while keeping a certain distance from 
the others AND they will naturally form a V.

I find it interesting this phenomena (i.e., current theory) is often 
cited by those professional in bird-dom as: "The V is the most 
efficient formation to fly, but the leading position is the hardest 
to maintain so they take turns. As such, using the V formation, the 
group can fly efficiently anywhere."

But, the truth of the matter is that if you take a bunch of birds 
with a need to be with their kind (but not too close) and a desire to 
go somewhere, a V formation is simply a natural mathematical outcome. 
Thus the V formation is not because of any decision (conscience or 
otherwise) of the members to form it. Additionally, trading places 
within the formation is only a function of which direction the 
majority of the flock is flying and who is where within the formation 
-- it's not because of fatigue, or dominance, or any other condition 
that we impose on the rational of other species.

tedd
-- 
http://sperling.com