Part II -- Animating the Rapide Model

Michael Chen
August 27, 1996
Rewritten: H. Hildreth, 9-18-96.
Revised: H. Hildreth, 9-30-96

PART II: Animating the Rapide Model

Objective: Create an input file for Raptor, ail.arch, that will enable animation of the AIL architecture model developed in Part 1. Note that the files ail.rpd and ail.log are unchanged from Part I.

Rapide concepts introduced: the animation tool, raptor; raptor input files describing graphical layout of architectures, components and communication paths.

Procedure: The Raptor tutorial, "Animating Rapide Simulation with Raptor: Life on the Farm" (Santoro, Vera), is an excellent instructional manual to assist in animation of Rapide models. Please also refer to the "raptor" man page.

The steps below will lead you through the creation of ail.arch, which is the animation layout file associated with ail.rpd.

The first step is to define the dimensions (in inches) of the box representing the highest-level (or all-encompassing) component, in this case "ail."


   architecture ail:1

   dim 4 6

The "1" after the colon is an index. If we had an array of ail components, they would be identified as ail:1, ail:2, ail:3, etc.

The second step is to plan the graphical layout of boxes representing "modules" (or subcomponents). x,y coordinates are given for the upper left and lower right corners of each box. The origin for these coordinates is the upper left corner of the enclosing box, defined by an "architecture" statement. (It is helpful to use a sheet of graph paper.) The following statement draws a 2" x 1" box for the module identified as ClientArch:1.


   mod ClientArch:1 "Client PC" rectangle {1.0 1.0} {3.0 2.0} -fill "thistle"

"Client PC" is a label, "thistle" is a color, and the coordinate origin is the upper left corner of the 4" x 6" ail:1 box. To view the layout of the client and server, type the following command:

raptor -a ail.arch

Exit raptor by selecting "Exit" under the "File" menu.

The third step is to plan the graphical layout of paths. Path coordinates indicate the beginning and end of the path (and possibly of intermediate turning points). For example, the path between the client and server "modules" is defined as follows. "twoway" indicates twoway communication (i.e., events travel in both directions, and "both" indicates a double-headed arrow.


   path ClientArch:1 ServerArch:1 {2.0 2.0} {2.0 4.0} -twoway both -width 2

The ail architecture contains only the two components, client and server. By defining a raptor architecture for each of these components, we are able to bring up a separate window (by double-clicking on the client or server box) that displays client or server subcomponents. The layout of client/server subcomponents is done in the same fashion as above; i.e., the position of subcomponent boxes is defined with respect to the upper left corner of the encompassing (client or server) box, and then paths between boxes are defined. Note that "modules" and "paths" (representing subcomponents and their connections) are defined between the "architecture..." and "end" statements (for the encompassing higher-level component).

Try running raptor again. This time double click (this may take multiple attempts) on the client and server boxes. Windows can be dragged into better viewing positions.

raptor -a ail.arch

To animate the model, choose the "Load Log File" option of the "File" menu, and select ail.log. Alternatively, exit raptor and rerun using the following command:
raptor -a ail.arch ail.log

Exit raptor by selecting "Exit" under the "File" menu.

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