Visualising Chaos through Real-Time Heat Maps in a Flocking Simulation

Simulations of chaotic real-world scenarios are useful for attempting to understand, predict and even manage these complex systems. This study simulates flocking birds and a predator which disrupts the flock, causing the birds to scatter and reform. Three measures of chaos: polarisation, kinetic energy and Shannon entropy are visualised using a real-time heat map. Our results find the heat map to be effective in highlighting the subtle differences in measurements, offering potential use-cases in future studies.