How can a computer generate a complex, coherent image or map from a simple set of rules? The Wave Function Collapse (WFC) algorithm provides a revolutionary way to do this. Inspired by concepts from quantum mechanics, it's less of a physics simulation and more of a clever constraint-solving puzzle, like a Sudoku.
🔍 The Discovery
Name of the Technology: Wave Function Collapse (WFC)
Original Creator/Institution: Maxim Gumin
Year of Origin: 2016
License: MIT License (freely available).
Imagine you have a blank grid. For each empty cell, you start with a list of all possible tiles that could go there. The algorithm then picks the cell with the fewest possibilities (the most constrained cell) and randomly "collapses" it into one of its possible states. Here's the magic: once a tile is chosen for that cell, the algorithm propagates constraints to all neighboring cells. For example, if you place a "beach" tile, you know the cell next to it can't be "lava"; it must be "ocean" or another "beach" tile. This new information reduces the possibilities for all the neighbors. This process repeats—find the most constrained cell, collapse it, and propagate the consequences—until every cell in the grid has a valid tile. The result is a perfectly tiled, locally consistent map that seems intelligently designed.
🛠️ Ready for Today: Why This Isn't Just Theory
WFC has exploded in popularity in the indie game development and procedural art communities. It provides a powerful way to generate high-quality, structured content from a small set of example inputs, moving beyond the chaotic randomness of older methods like Perlin noise.
Status: The original implementation is open source (MIT License).
Implementations: Many open-source implementations and tutorials exist for various languages and game engines.
Original C#: Maxim Gumin's original repository on GitHub is the canonical source.
Unity/Unreal Engine: WFC is a very popular tool for level design, with many assets and tutorials available on their respective marketplaces for generating tile-based maps, dungeons, and cities.
JavaScript/p5.js: Many creative coders have built accessible WFC implementations for generating 2D patterns and art in the browser.
Python: Libraries exist for using WFC for image and map generation in Python.
💡 Creative Applications (Ideas To Get You Thinking)
The core idea of constraint-solving to generate content can be applied to much more than just tile maps.
Idea 1 (A "Procedural Melody" Generator): Instead of a grid of tiles, imagine a sequence of musical notes. You could define rules about which notes can follow which other notes (e.g., a 'C' can be followed by a 'G' but not a 'B'). WFC could then generate a musically coherent melody that adheres to these local rules of harmony and progression.
Idea 2 (A "Synthetic Document" Formatter): A tool could be designed to generate realistic-looking but fake document layouts. Given a set of rules about how elements can be placed—e.g., a "headline" must be followed by a "byline" or "body text," an "image" must have a "caption" below it—WFC could generate an infinite variety of well-formatted page layouts for use in mockups or UI testing.
Idea 3 (A "Fashion/Outfit" Recommender): An e-commerce fashion site could use WFC to suggest outfits. Given a set of rules—a "formal shirt" pairs with "dress pants" but not "jeans," "brown shoes" pair with a "brown belt"—a user could select one item, and the system could use WFC to collapse the remaining clothing slots into a valid, fashionable combination.
🐰 The Rabbit Hole
Dive Deeper: The "DV Gen" YouTube channel has an excellent video called "Why I'm Using Wave Function Collapse for Procedural Terrain" It uses simple grid examples and color-coded tiles to explain the core loop of observation and propagation in a way that is incredibly intuitive and easy to follow.
Join The Search
Our mission is to unearth the world's most powerful, overlooked ideas. If you know of a technology that is trapped in a niche, overshadowed by hype, or simply deserves a bigger spotlight, please submit it for a future issue here.
Till next time,