Development of JAVA visual editor of stick creatures 
Maciej Komosinski's picture

This thread is to discuss the development of JAVA visual
editor of stick bodies and NN brains for Framsticks.
Here are the initial requirements; feel free to add your
ideas and comments.

The idea is to support users with a user-friendly editor of
any stick objects and linked neural networks (body & brain).
It should output the f0 genotype for the designed creature.
Here is my initial wish list:

- drag-and-drop design of body
- drag-and-drop design of brain
- zoom/pan/rotate of the body; autozoom
- zoom/pan of brain; autozoom
- easy to modify list of properties of sticks and neurons
(possibly via an external text file)
- statistics of the designed model (number of parts etc.)
- right-click shows properties
- TAB circulates through objects, like in another object-based
editors
- validation of objects (warnings when unconnected neurons,
sticks, reduntant muscles, etc.)

The source should be modular and reusable, as possible.
Some parts may be inspired by Framsticks C++ source.

Maciej Komosinski's picture

Dear developers and users of Framsticks,

The development of Fred (FRamsticks EDitor) has started.
It will allow for visual design of f0-described creatures.
It will be a standalone JAVA application (maybe also a simple
applet viewer), perhaps with an option to call
an external program or server to evaluate the designed
creature.

Your wishes as to Fred are welcome. I know there are
many issues which can be easily overlooked, so please
don't hesitate to post your ideas.

Note that there is a 'mature' version of SDK available,
suitable for Framsticks v2 (to be released within a month).
Fred will use f0 as defined in this SDK. Links to Fred
development will be soon accessible from

http://www.framsticks.com/dev/main

MacKo