Create a Landscape with Labyrinths as in Turing patterns

Generates a landscape with a labyrinth-like vegetation pattern, this mimics Turing patterns.

Usage

create_landscape_labyrinth(
  width = 100,
  height = 100,
  frequency = 3,
  veg_threshold = 0.5,
  band_fuzziness = 0.08,
  octaves = 2
)

Arguments

width

Integer. Number of columns in the landscape (default: 100).

height

Integer. Number of rows in the landscape (default: 100).

frequency

Numeric. Controls the spatial scale of the noise pattern: Lower values produce broad, smooth bands, higher values produce finer, maze-like structures (default: 3).

veg_threshold

Numeric between 0 and 1. Defines the cutoff value that separates vegetated from non-vegetated cells. Values above the threshold become vegetation. Adjusting this changes the overall proportion of vegetated area (default: 0.5).

band_fuzziness

Numeric between 0 and 0.5. Controls the amount of geometric edge roughness applied *after* thresholding. At 0, vegetation boundaries are sharp and fully deterministic. Small values (≈ 0.05–0.1) introduce slight, irregular boundary perturbations without changing the overall topology of the pattern. Larger values progressively erode vegetation edges and can fragment bands if set too high. This parameter affects boundary geometry only and does not influence the global structure or connectivity of the labyrinth. (default: 0.08)

octaves

Integer >= 1. Number of noise layers (octaves) combined to generate the underlying continuous field. A single octave produces very smooth, large-scale bands. Using two to three octaves adds limited fine structure while preserving a dominant wavelength, which is characteristic of labyrinth (Turing-like) patterns. Higher values introduce fractal detail at smaller scales and can obscure the banded structure, making patterns less clearly classifiable as labyrinths. (default: 2).

Value

A landscape object with pattern "labyrinth" containing:

data

SpatRaster with binary values (0 = bare ground, 1 = vegetation)

pattern

Character string "labyrinth"

params

List of all input parameters used to generate the landscape

Details

The labyrinth pattern is generated using fractal Brownian motion (fBm):

1. **Noise generation**: Creates a continuous noise field using multiple octaves of Perlin noise with `fbm_perlin()`.

2. **Normalization**: Scales noise values to [0, 1] range.

3. **Thresholding**: Applies `veg_threshold` to create binary pattern. Cells with noise > threshold become vegetation.

4. **Fuzzy boundaries**: Adds probabilistic transitions within `band_fuzziness` distance of the threshold for natural-looking edges.

The combination of `frequency` and `octaves` controls pattern complexity, while `veg_threshold` determines vegetation proportion.

See also

Other landscape creation: create_landscape(), create_landscape_bands(), create_landscape_bare(), create_landscape_clustered(), create_landscape_dense(), create_landscape_diffuse(), create_landscape_fingers(), create_landscape_gaps(), create_landscape_random(), create_landscape_sharp(), create_landscape_spots(), create_landscapes()

Examples

# Default labyrinth pattern
labyrinth_default <- create_landscape_labyrinth()

# Modified labyrinth with higher frequency and multiple octaves
labyrinth_modified <- create_landscape_labyrinth(
  frequency = 8,
  octaves = 3,
  band_fuzziness = 0.05
)

# Adjust vegetation coverage
labyrinth_sparse <- create_landscape_labyrinth(
  veg_threshold = 0.6  # Less vegetation
)

labyrinth_dense <- create_landscape_labyrinth(
  veg_threshold = 0.3  # More vegetation
)