Visualization and Animation of Discrete Event Simulations using Java~(TM) Graphical User Interfaces

摘要

We have given a short overview of an object-oriented technique for animation of simulations. The description and the constructs are based on the Java language and the Java Swing toolkit. The simulation constructs and the simulation algorithm are easy to implement by using the Java language, and the graphical elements and the presentation of the simulation on the screen may be efficient and elegant by using the Java Swing toolkit. We have defined two approaches for updating and presenting the simulation state by a graphical model: event driven and time-step driven animation. The event driven animation presents the simulation model event on the screen, and the user is able to observe the progress of the simulation event by event. The time-step driven animation shows snapshots of the model at regular time intervals. The user may tune the snapshot intervals to the speed of the simulation events. The user may also tune the speed of the graphical presentation to the human mind. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. Observations of simulations consisting of many events will not be practical using the event-driven approach. The method may be used to observe critical sequences of events over a short interval of time. The time-step driven approach may be used to observe the progress of a simulation run over a longer interval of time. The approach may be used to observe e.g. transient models states, or other unstable states of the model.