Awhile back, Discipulus asked me if I knew how to make a hexagon grid in Perl/Tk. It actually was pretty easy on a Tk::Canvas. The code below could be used for visualizing the game. The code as is, just reports cell position with mouse movement, but it could easily be setup to store each hexagon as it's own hash element, then set up a timer to cycle thru your Conway algorithms and change colors on the various grid hex elements. The code below dosn't really show it, but you would also want to store each cells data in canvas tags. You could store JSON data in a tag. Anyways... for the visualization. :-) The Tk::Canvas is extremely versatile when the tags are juggled correctly.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Tk;

# simplest hex example where the cell height = sqrt(3) cell width  
# and all cells vertically oriented like a honeycomb

# W = 2 * r
# s = 1.5 * r
# H = 2 * r * sin(60 degrees) = sqrt(3) * r

# therefore
# r = W/2 and we can compute our polygon's points
# 


# set number of cells in x and y direction
my ( $num_cells_x , $num_cells_y) = (50,50);

# set rectangular cell and width and compute height
my $cwidth = 40; 
my $cheight = sqrt(3) * $cwidth;

# compute canvas size required
my ($canvasWidth, $canvasHeight) = ($num_cells_x *  $cwidth,
                        $num_cells_y *  $cheight);

my $mw = MainWindow->new();
$mw->geometry('500x500+300+300');

my $sc = $mw->Scrolled('Canvas', -bg => 'black',
                         -width => $canvasWidth,
             -height => $canvasHeight,
             -scrollbars => 'osoe',
             -scrollregion => [ 0, 0, $canvasWidth, $canvasHeight ],
              )->pack;

my $canvas =$sc->Subwidget("canvas");

my ($x, $y, $r , $s , $h, $w, $diff, $row, $col );
$r = $cwidth/2;
$w = $cwidth;
$h = sqrt(3) * $r;
$s = 1.5 * $r;
$diff = $w - $s;
$row = 0;
$col = 0;

# $x and $y are center of mass locations 
for ($y = 0; $y < $canvasHeight; $y+= $h/2){
    
   for ($x = 0; $x < $canvasWidth; $x+= (2*$r + $s - $diff) ){
    
    my $shift = 0;
    my $color; # toggles row colors and spacings
    if ($row % 2){ $color = '#FFAAAA';
       $shift = $s ;
     }
    
    else{ $color = '#AAAAFF'}
    
    #print "$color\n";
    
        my $x0 = $x - $r - $shift;    
        my $y0 = $y;
        my $x1 = $x0 + $diff;
    my $y1 = $y0 - $h/2;
    my $x2 = $x0 + $s; 
    my $y2 = $y0 - $h/2;
    my $x3 = $x0 + 2*$r;
    my $y3 = $y;
    my $x4 = $x0 + $s;
    my $y4 = $y0 + $h/2;
    my $x5 = $x1;
    my $y5 = $y0 + $h/2;
    my $x6 = $x0; # close up to starting point
    my $y6 = $y0;
    
     # account for $shift affecting x position
     # xpos != x
     my $xpos = $x0 + $r;
     
     my $hexcell = $canvas->createPolygon ($x0, $y0, $x1, $y1,
                    $x2, $y2,$x3, $y3,$x4, $y4,$x5, $y5, $x6, $y6,    
+                        
                     -fill => $color,
                     -activefill => '#CCFFCC',
                         -tags =>['hexcell',"row.$row","col.$col", "po
+sx.$xpos", "posy.$y" ],
                         -width => 1,
                         -outline => 'black',
                     );
          $col++;
    }
$row++;
$col = 0; # reset column
}

$sc->bind('hexcell', '<Enter>', \&enter );

$sc->bind("hexcell", "<Leave>", \&leave );

$sc->bind("hexcell", "<1>", \&left_click );

MainLoop;

sub left_click {
  my ($canv) = @_;
  my $id = $canv->find('withtag', 'current');
  my @tags = $canv->gettags($id);
  print "@tags\n";
  $canv->itemconfigure($id, -fill=>'#44FF44');
}


sub enter {
  my ($canv) = @_;
  my $id = $canv->find('withtag', 'current');
  my @tags = $canv->gettags($id);
  print "@tags\n";
}

sub leave{
  my ($canv) = @_;
  print "leave\n";
}
[download]