Home▸Ecology & Conservation Biology▸Ant Mound Solar Flux — Grid & Sun-Path Model

Ant Mound Solar Flux — Grid & Sun-Path Model

The 2D counterpart to the 3D Formica mound scene: the same cosine-law solar absorption and Newton's-law nest-temperature ODE, redrawn as a top-down height-field flux grid, an azimuth-elevation sun-path polar chart, and a scrolling temperature strip with bang-bang vent control.

Ecology & Conservation Biology2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This is the 2D counterpart to the 3D Formica wood-ant mound scene, driven by the identical physics: a south-elongated dome absorbs solar radiation by the cosine (Lambert) law and an internal nest-core temperature evolves by Newton's law of cooling with a vent-controlled loss term. Instead of an instanced 3D mesh viewed from a camera, this view computes the dome as a genuine 2D height-field grid — surface slope and the resulting normal vector are recovered numerically from neighboring grid cells, the same technique used in real digital-elevation-model solar-exposure mapping — alongside a standard sun-path polar diagram (elevation/azimuth) and a scrolling temperature strip chart showing the bang-bang vent control in action.

⚙ Under the hood

The 2D counterpart to the 3D Formica wood-ant mound scene: the same south-elongated dome, cosine-law solar absorption and Newton's-law nest-temperature model, but computed on a top-down height-field grid with numerically recovered slope/normal vectors, an azimuth-elevation sun-path polar chart, and a scrolling temperature strip showing the bang-bang vent control in action.

antsthermoregulationsolar geometryinsect behaviorbiophysicsheight fieldsun path diagram

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install