gridbased

Gridbased is an adjective used to describe systems, designs, or processes organized around a regular grid, typically comprised of evenly spaced cells arranged in rows and columns. The grid provides a discrete framework that simplifies position, measurement, and computation, enabling uniform tiling and indexing across space. The term spans multiple disciplines, from software design and computer graphics to urban planning and geographic information systems, where modular units are favored over continuous space.

In computing and digital media, gridbased approaches underpin user interface layouts, tile-based rendering, and raster representations. In game design and puzzles, many titles use grid maps where movement and interaction occur in discrete steps along grid cells; examples include chess and checkers on square boards, Go on a grid board, Sudoku, and crosswords. Cellular automata such as Conway's Game of Life operate on a grid, evolving patterns through local rules.

In urban planning and geography, grid patterns organize streets and land parcels, exemplified by the Cartesian street grid of many cities. In GIS, raster data models represent terrain and imagery as grids of cells with assigned values, a fundamental contrast to vector representations.

Advantages of gridbased design include straightforward indexing, predictable alignment, simple tiling, and efficient computation. Limitations include discretization artifacts, reduced precision for curved or irregular features, and potential aliasing. Variants such as hexagonal grids or lattice-based arrangements address some drawbacks by offering different neighbor relations. Related concepts include lattice, raster, tiling, and mesh.