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A C++20 library and interactive application for building and simulating Dynamic Neural Field (DNF) architectures.
Dynamic Neural Fields are a mathematical framework from computational neuroscience. They model how populations of neurons collectively represent, maintain, and transform information distributed over continuous feature dimensions — such as spatial position, orientation, or color.
A DNF is governed by a differential equation over a one-dimensional activation field u(x, t). The field's dynamics emerge from the interplay between:
- A resting level that pulls activation downward in the absence of input
- A lateral interaction kernel (excitatory center, inhibitory surround) convolved with the field's output
- External inputs from stimuli or other fields
This produces characteristic behaviors that are useful for building cognitive and robotic architectures:
| Behavior | Description |
|---|---|
| Detection | A sufficiently strong input drives the field above threshold, forming a localized bump |
| Working memory | A bump persists self-sustainedly after the input is removed |
| Selection | Competing inputs resolve into a single winner-take-all bump |
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Simulation engine | Time-stepped loop that manages and steps all elements |
| Element library | Neural fields, lateral interaction kernels, stimuli, field couplings, noise |
| Learnable couplings | Weight-matrix couplings with Hebbian, Oja, and Delta learning rules |
| Real-time visualization | Line plots and heatmaps rendered via ImPlot |
| Interactive GUI | Node-graph editor, element inspector, field metrics panel, plot controls |
| Serialization | Save and load complete simulation configurations as JSON |
The library is useful both as a simulation tool (run and inspect neural field dynamics interactively) and as a C++ framework (link it into your own application and drive fields programmatically).
It is also designed to be easy to build from source — a deliberate goal, since academic projects are often hard to compile. External dependencies are few and resolved automatically through vcpkg, so setup is a single script away.
All library code lives in the dnf_composer namespace. Elements are further nested under dnf_composer::element.
using namespace dnf_composer;
using namespace dnf_composer::element;