Patch()

A patch is a spatially and numerically fixed agent primitive that forms the grid on which other agents move in a spatial model.

Patches inherit all methods from baseAgent, except those pertaining to motion, orientation, and reproduction; these will raise a RuntimeError. They can, for example, own stocks of goods and trade them. Patches will also have cardinal-direction properties returning the adjacent patch depending on the geometry:

• Rectangular: patch.up, patch.down, patch.left, and patch.right
• Polar: patch.clockwise, patch.counterclockwise, patch.inward, and patch.outward

These properties return a Patch object unless the patch abuts the map edge in that direction and wrapping is disabled.

Patches are registered automatically when a spatial model is initialized, and should not be instantiated manually.

Methods

Click a method name for more detailed documentation.

• die( )

  Removes the patch from the board, and if spatial() had been initialized with offmap=False, prevents agents from moving to coordinates previously covered by the patch. Patches can be revived with basePatches.revive().

Object Properties

• position — tuple(int, int)

  For grid-based geometries, returns the coordinate position of the patch. For a geospatial model, returns the coordinate of the weighted center of the patch.

• neighbors — list[Patch]

  The patch's Moore or Von Neumann neighborhood, depending on the value of the corners parameter of model.spatial(). A patch is connected to its neighbors via a 'spatial' network.

  Initial value: []

• agentsOn — list[Agent]

  A list of agents whose current position is on the patch.

  Initial value: []

• center — tuple(num, num)

  Returns the center coordinate of the patch.

• area — num

  Returns the area of the patch. This will be 1 by definition in a rectangular geometry, and variable depending on distance from the center in a polar geometry.

• vertices — list[tuple(num, num)]

  A list of coordinates defining the corners of the patch.

Static Properties

• fixed — bool

  For patches, indicates that they cannot reproduce.

  Initial value: True