Initial View
This is the first screen that you see upon successful initialization and startup. The program comprises of three sections which have been marked in yellow.
The section on top is called the "Control Bar". It can be used to select a one of various Game of Life templates or the lone Sugarscape template.
Once a template has been selected, the user can start, stop or step through the simulation one cycle at a time using the next two buttons.
The final option allows a user to control the execution pace of the simulation.
The second rectangle highlights the cell grid or Cellspace as it is often referred to in the documentation and code. It shows a visual representation of all the cells on the Sugarscape. Each cell is analogus to a piece of land. No template has been selected, hence the cells are currently blank.
The last highlighted area is the interface that allows the user and program to communicate with each other. It shows a tabbed pane like folders in a file cabinet. The first tab (Scoreboard) and last (History) are primarily used by the program to display results of the simulations. The other tabs allow the user to control the program by changing some key parameters.
Initial View of the Sugarscape
The picture above shows the Cellspace after selection of the Sugarscape template from the Control Bar. Notice that some cells are a light shade of gray, these denote empty cells. Other cells have dark gray bars attached to one or both sides. These bars represent levels of the two resources, sugar (on the left) and spice (on the right).
Some cells have green and orange icons that made up of two rectangles or circles. These denote citizens, the former shape denotes citizens with low vision, while the latter denote citizens with high vision. Citizens with high vision can see farther on the grid and therefore better able to locate the best resource locations.
The shapes may be hollow or filled, the former denoting a high metabolism and the later a low metabolism. Citizens with low metabolism need fewer resources to live and so are more likely to survive.
The colors green & orange represent high & low resource levels respectively. Another color, red, denotes dangerously low resource levels.
Cellspace after 100 timeperiods
This view of the Cellspace is a snapshot of a given point in time. Notice the Cellspace is relatively barren from harvesting by citizens. The Control Bar also shows the number of timeperiods or cycles that have passed and the current population level. The population is a healthy mix of adults (colored), children (white) and seniors (black). The tabbed pane shows the Scoreboard and reflects the distribution of various groups on the Sugarscape.
The earlier picture showed a population evenly distributed on the Sugarscape as 'seasonal' processes were not active. The above picture shows a population concentrated in the upper half of there grid. This is the region where it is currently summer. The winter region is deserted in part due to migration and in part to citizens dying due to starvation.
