Game of life using NumPy

Question

I'm trying to improve my Game of life program for school in Python, to be able to run it quicker. So if you have some ideas, I will be glad to hear them.

My current code:

def neighbourhood(m, i, j):
    num = 0
    n_board = len(m)
    for k in range(i-1,i+2):
        for l in range(j-1,j+2):
            if k < 0 or l < 0 or k >= n_board or l >= n_board:
                num = num + 0
            else:
                num = num + m[k][l]
    return num

def update(m):
    s = np.copy(m)
    n_board = len(m)
    for i in range(0, n_board):
        for j in range(0, n_board):
            if s[i][j] == 1:
                num = neighbourhood(s, i, j) - 1
                if num <= 1 or num > 3:
                    m[i][j] = 0
                else:
                    m[i][j] = 1
            else:
                num = neighbourhood(s, i, j)
                if num == 3:
                    m[i][j] = 1
                else:
                    m[i][j] = 0

def square(x, y):
    turtle.penup()
    turtle.setposition(x,y)
    turtle.setheading(0)
    turtle.pendown()
    turtle.begin_fill()
    for i in range(4):
        turtle.forward(0.9)
        turtle.left(90)
    turtle.end_fill()


def draw(m):
    turtle.clear()
    n_board = len(m)
    for i in range(n_board):
        for j in range(n_board):
            if m[i][j] == 1:
                square(j, (n_board - i - 1))
    turtle.update()

def main(n_board):
    turtle.reset()
    turtle.setworldcoordinates(0, 0, n_board, n_board)
    turtle.hideturtle()
    turtle.speed('fastest')
    turtle.tracer(0, 0)
    turtle.color('black')
    turtle.bgcolor('white')
    board=np.zeros((n_board, n_board), int)
    for i in range(n_board):
        for j in range(n_board):
            if random() < 0.5:
                board[i][j] = 1
    draw(board)
    for k in range(100):
        update(board)
        draw(board)

So as you can see for the moment i'm only doing 100 repetition and the starting board is randomly created.

Answer 1

Since you aren't using any of the things that make numpy fast, this code would be about 2x faster if you just used python lists instead. Alternatively, if you vectorized the update function, you would probably be able to make it much faster. That said, this will not be easy. This question has a very good example of what the result would look like.