DirtSim is a grid/cell-based playground for experimenting with various ideas.
It attempts to simulate both fluid and rigid body dynamics.
It has sensory and motor-based artificial life forms, injectable into most scenarios. The life forms have either hard coded or trainable neural networks for brains.
It also has a very nice clock mode, just hacked in because why not make use of the weird grid physics. This is probably the most practical use of this application - as a clock with various strange effects and events (marquee effects, rain, melting digits, glowing digits, parkour duck, etc).
In the below image you can see a "duck" lifeform, holding a flash light, jumping across the floor beneath the clock.
There is also a polyphonic digital synth.
It also has a monitor-mode based wifi channel scanner.
It has an integrated NES emulator, allowing for training neural nets on whatever games you choose to supply.
Plus more... dirtsim was my playground for a while, so there are various other full to half baked things in here, such as:
- A web server, allowing remote access via h266-based streaming video.
- A NES state space searcher, finding optimal input streams for games.
- A fractal viewer.
It runs on Linux X86 under X11, wayland, and framebuffer.
It also designed as an embedded application, running great on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5.
- Raspberry Pi 4 or 5
- MPI4008 4" HDMI touchscreen (480x800) or HyperPixel 4.0 DPI (480x800)
- Unified image auto-detects hardware
- Also runs natively on linux/x86
dirtsim/
├── apps/ # Main simulation application
│ ├── src/server/ # Headless physics simulation (WebSocket API :8080)
│ ├── src/ui/ # LVGL display client (WebSocket API :7070)
│ └── src/cli/ # Command-line tool for control, testing, benchmarking
└── yocto/ # Yocto layer for building Pi images
cd apps
make debug # Build
./build-debug/bin/cli run-all # Run server + UI
./build-debug/bin/cli functional-test canTrain # Smoke test (requires running UI/server)| Document | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Application docs | README.md |
Build, run, test, architecture |
| Architecture | apps/design_docs/Architecture.md |
System overview and components |
| Physics system | apps/design_docs/GridMechanics.md |
Pressure, friction, cohesion, etc. |
| Coding conventions | coding_convention.md |
Style guidelines |
| CLI reference | apps/src/cli/README.md |
Command-line interface |
| Yocto deployment | yocto/ |
Yocto layer for building Pi images |
# Deploy from workstation (Yocto-based full system).
cd yocto
npm run yolo -- --hold-my-mead # Build + deploy + reboot
npm run yolo -- --clean-all --hold-my-mead # Full rebuild
npm run yolo -- --target <dirtsim-hostname> --fast --hold-my-mead # Fast deploy
# SSH to device.
ssh <dirtsim-hostname>
# Check service.
ssh <dirtsim-hostname> "systemctl status dirtsim-server"
ssh <dirtsim-hostname> "journalctl -u dirtsim-server -f"
# Verify WebSocket endpoints via CLI on device.
ssh <dirtsim-hostname> "dirtsim-cli server StatusGet"
ssh <dirtsim-hostname> "dirtsim-cli ui StatusGet"