Agent Visualisation Toolkit

From Agent Factory

Introduction

AVT is a java-based toolkit which run together with MAS applications to analyse and visualise agents and their interactions.

Preliminary requirements

• JDK 1.5+
• JUnit 4.3+
• project developed in Eclipse, project & classpath are in CVS

How to use AVT

Steps:

• 1, Checkout module AF-RTE and AVT from CVS repository

• 2, Build both modules, rebuild AF-RTE.jar

NB: you may need to checkout other AF modules in order to get AF-RTE to compile Dependent libs for AVT are under lib directory, see classpath for more details

• 3, Start the Visualisation Server

Run main class - server.processor.VisualisationServer, you should now be able to see the main visualisation window, but with no messages For the Visualisation Service you may need to change the IP address settings in com.agentfactory.platform.mts.FIPAMessageQueue.java

• 4, Start AgentFactory

You need to add the new AF-RTE.jar you just built, and all jars under AVT/lib directory to the classpath

• 5, Run you agents

• 6, When you are ready to visualise your agents, go back to the main visualisation window, and click the 'Refresh' button, you should now see messages in the list

• 7, Protocol Graph

From the main visualisation window, click the 'Protocol' button to see the protocol graph, you can use the filter settings on the right-hand panel

• 8, Clustering & grouping

From the main visualisation window, click 'Agent Graph' button the see the agent graph, by default it displays the 'Cluster' view, now you can zoom-in and zoom-out using your mouse, filter settings are also available at the right-hand panel. You can now click on the meter at the right-bottom corner to cut edges to highlight clusters among agents, you can opt to display clusters as sub-groups. You can also change the graph to circle view by click 'Circle View' at the right-hand panel.