-= AntSim: The Interactive Ant Colony Simulation =-

                         by Richard McKnight

              This software is released under the GPL license

=== Usage ===

./antsim world.map numAnts exploreRate nestEvapRate foodEvapRate randSeed

where

world.map    - The map containing the ant colonies environment (see examples)
numAnts      - The number of ants to use the simulation        [1, 300]
exploreRate  - The number of frames between random actions     [1, 100]
nestEvapRate - The rate of evaporation of the nest pheromone   [0, 100]
foodEvapRate - The rate of evaporation of the food pheromone   [0, 100]
randSeed     - A random seed for the simulation                [int]

*note* The rate is the change per frame of the value

=== Compiling ===

First, you _MUST_ have SDL (the simple direct media layer) installed.
You can download it for free at http://www.libsdl.org
Once, SDL is installed, type:

make

for the full ant simulator or

make -f Makefile.nogui

for the stripped down, non-gui version, useful for gathering data.

=== Notes ===

When using the GUI version, you can interactively add blockages with the
right mouse button and remove blockages with the left mouse button.  Also,
you may need to decrease the screen resolution to see the SDL window.
Alternatively, you can edit this line in gui.cc:

screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(w_, h_, 8, SDL_HWSURFACE | SDL_DOUBLEBUF);// | SDL_FULLSCREEN);

to be the following:

screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(w_, h_, 8, SDL_HWSURFACE | SDL_DOUBLEBUF | SDL_FULLSCREEN);

Then, recompile and you can run the simulator in fullscreen mode.


When using the non-GUI version, nothing is displayed until the simulation
finishes and then the number of frames to the steady state trail is printed.
It is possible to edit the bottom of the antsim.cc file to have it print
whatever data you would like.

=== Enjoy ===