Recent changes to RunningExperiments

RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 10:22:15 -0000

RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:59:43 -0000

RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 08:53:18 -0000

RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 10:31:59 -0000

RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:36:56 -0000

--- v13
+++ v14
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-[Prev: Mac - Installing from Sources]([MacSources]) |  | [Next: Compiling an Experiment Plugin]([CompilingPlugin])
+[Prev: Mac - Installing from Sources]([MacSources]) | [Up: Home]([Home]) | [Next: Compiling an Experiment Plugin]([CompilingPlugin])
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RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:21:49 -0000

--- v12
+++ v13
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+[Prev: Mac - Installing from Sources]([MacSources]) |  | [Next: Compiling an Experiment Plugin]([CompilingPlugin])
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+        |        |
+
+**Table of contents**
+
+[TOC]
+
 Running the Exemplificative Experiments
 =====
 To use FARSA you should run the Total99 application from the application menu (or from the installation directory if compiled the tool from the source package).

RunningExperiments modified by Tomassino Ferrauto

Tomassino Ferrauto — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 11:02:21 -0000

Running the Exemplificative Experiments modified by Stefano Nolfi

Stefano Nolfi — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:02:30 -0000

--- v10
+++ v11
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@

 [[img src=total99_loadedproject.png width=80%]]

-At this point you need to configure and run the experiment by pressing the "Create and Configure" button of the tool bar. Before that, however, you need to compile the experimental plugin (i.e. the source code of the experiment that you want to run (see [Compiling and Experiment Plugin]) and you should verify that the plugin directory parameter (shown in the "Login Path" section of the Total99 graphic Widget) is set to the directory that contains the compiled plugin file (i.e. a file ending with .dll or dylib, depending on your operating system). You can modify the directory by clicking on the current Login Path directory. Alternatively, you can load the plugin file manually with the "Load Plugin" command of the menu bar before pressing the "Create and Configure" button. 
+At this point you need to configure and run the experiment by pressing the "Create and Configure" button of the tool bar. Before that, however, you need to compile the experimental plugin (i.e. the source code of the experiment that you want to run (see [Compiling an Experiment Plugin]) and you should verify that the plugin directory parameter (shown in the "Login Path" section of the Total99 graphic Widget) is set to the directory that contains the compiled plugin file (i.e. a file ending with .dll or dylib, depending on your operating system). You can modify the directory by clicking on the current Login Path directory. Alternatively, you can load the plugin file manually with the "Load Plugin" command of the menu bar before pressing the "Create and Configure" button. 

 Once the experiment has been created and configured the Total99 interface will contains the following parts (from top to bottom):

Running the Exemplificative Experiments modified by Stefano Nolfi

Stefano Nolfi — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:00:35 -0000

--- v9
+++ v10
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@

 [[img src=total99_loadedproject.png width=80%]]

-At this point you need to configure and run the experiment by pressing the "Create and Configure" button of the tool bar. Before that, however, you need to compile the experimental plugin (i.e. the source code of the experiment that you want to run (see [How to Compile and Experiment Plugin]) and you should verify that the plugin directory parameter (shown in the "Login Path" section of the Total99 graphic Widget) is set to the directory that contains the compiled plugin file (i.e. a file ending with .dll or dylib, depending on your operating system). You can modify the directory by clicking on the current Login Path directory. Alternatively, you can load the plugin file manually with the "Load Plugin" command of the menu bar before pressing the "Create and Configure" button. 
+At this point you need to configure and run the experiment by pressing the "Create and Configure" button of the tool bar. Before that, however, you need to compile the experimental plugin (i.e. the source code of the experiment that you want to run (see [Compiling and Experiment Plugin]) and you should verify that the plugin directory parameter (shown in the "Login Path" section of the Total99 graphic Widget) is set to the directory that contains the compiled plugin file (i.e. a file ending with .dll or dylib, depending on your operating system). You can modify the directory by clicking on the current Login Path directory. Alternatively, you can load the plugin file manually with the "Load Plugin" command of the menu bar before pressing the "Create and Configure" button. 

 Once the experiment has been created and configured the Total99 interface will contains the following parts (from top to bottom):

Running the Exemplificative Experiments modified by Stefano Nolfi

Stefano Nolfi — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 10:59:06 -0000

--- v8
+++ v9
@@ -37,26 +37,27 @@

 Notice that the colora of the connection weights displayed in the "Nervous System" widget, that indicate the sign and the strength of the corresponding connection weighta, vary when you test a selected individual. 

-You can run the evolutionary process with the command Action->Evolve. Farsa will carry on the process automatically, will display the statistics in the "Fitness Monitor" window as soon as they become available, and will save the genome of the best individuals and the statistics in the .gen and .fit file. However, since the evolutionary process typically takes a long time, you might run it from the command line ([How to run Total99 in batch mode]). 
+You can run the evolutionary process with the command Action->Evolve. Farsa will carry on the process automatically, will display the statistics in the "Fitness Monitor" window as soon as they become available, and will save the genome of the best individuals and the statistics in the .gen and .fit file. However, since the evolutionary process typically takes a long time, you might want to run it in batch mode (i.e. without graphic) from the command line with the command "total99 --batch --file=configuration.ini --action=evolve". 
+
+Below we briefly indroduce how the parameters of an experiment can be inspected and modified from the parameter editor of the Total99 interface. More detailed information is provided in the following sections of the documentation.

 Checking and modifying the parameters of one experiment
 -----
-The parameters of an experiment can be visualized and modified from the Total99 graphic interface (see screenshot above). Since parameters and associated objects are organized hierarchically in FARSA, this requires to navigate and to select in the parameter tree the group of parameters you want to view/modify. The parameter editor on the right will follow your selection immediately showing the value of the parameters belonging to the selected object/group and creates the widget for modifying/adding parameters. Notice however that some of the parameters cannot be modified once an experiment has been configured (you need to modify them and then eventually save the new parameters before configuring the experiment).

-In the case of the GraspExperiment, the higher-level of the three is constituted by the EvoRobotComponent (i.e. the class that is used to run any kind of evolutionary experiment). This high-level object does not include parameters to be configured, but it forces a particular structure of the configuration file suitable for evolutionary robotics experiments.
+Parameters and associated objects are organized hierarchically in FARSA and can be freely modified before the experiment has been configured. To access to a parameter or to a group of parameters you should then first navigate in the parameter tree by clicking over a component to access or to compress the visualization of the corresponding sub-components. You can expand/compress the visualization of a component by clicking on the small triangle on the left of the component name. 

-The second level of the tree, that can be accessed by clicking on the EvoRobotComponent entry of the parameter tree, contains the GA (i.a. Genetic Algorithm) component. This component contains several associated parameters that can be modified or removed (the effect of removing a parameter consist in using the default value associated to it). Usually, each parameter come with an help description that can be visualized by clicking on the corresponding icon (the "i" on the right of the parameter row).
-Unspecified parameter associated to the current object or new possible sub-groups, if any, can be added by using the corresponding dialog boxes located in the bottom part of the parameter editor.  
+Once you found the component that you want to observe and/or modify you can select by clicking over it to access the corresponding parameters on the parameter editor located on the right side of the window. Once you made modification to the parameters you might want to save them by pressing the "Save Project" or the "Save Project As" button of the tool bar. 

-The third level of the parameter tree is constituted by the Experiment, the GraspExperiment object in this case, with its associated parameters. As we will see, this objects contains 8 subgroups constituted by 5 sensor objects and 3 motor objects. Additional sensors and motors subgroups can be added from this level, through the New Subgroup dialog section.
+In the case of the GraspExperiment, the higher-level of the three is constituted by the EvoRobotComponent (i.e. the component that is used to run evolutionary experiments). This high-level object does not include parameters to be configured.

-The fourth level (and last level in this case) include several objects:
+The second level of the tree, that can be accessed by clicking on the EvoRobotComponent entry of the parameter tree, contains the GA (i.a. Genetic Algorithm) component. This component contains several associated parameters that can be modified or removed from the configuration.ini file (unspecified parameters will be set to their default value). Each parameter come with an help description that can be visualized by clicking on the help ("i") icon locate on the right of the parameter. 

-* **the neural network** of the robot with the associated parameters that specify the number of internal neurons and the way in which neurons are interconnected (the number and type of sensory and motor neurons is automatically set on the basis of the type of sensors and motors selected). The architecture of the robot's neural controller can be varied within limits by using the parameters that specify the type of the sensory, internal, and motor neuron, and/or the presence of direct sensory-motors connections through the parameters. Alternatively, as in the case of this experiment, the architecture of the network and the properties of the neurons can be modified through the dedicated graphic interface (the Evonet->Nervous_System window) and saved in a .net file indicated in a corresponding parameter
-* the **iCub Robot** with its associated parameters that specify the parts of the robot that are enabled or blocked and the initial position of the joints
-* **five sensor objects** with associated parameters that regulate the way in which they operate. 
-* **three motor objects** with their associated parameters. 
+The "New Parameter" and "New Subgroup" sections located at the bottom of the parameter editor can be used to add a new parameter to be configured or a new sub-components.  

-After having varied one or more parameters you can save the project and run a varied experiment. New experiment generated by varying the parameters can include, for example, robots provided with different sensors and motors, robots provided with different neural architectures, and experiment conducted with alternative evolutionary algorithms.
+The third level of the parameter tree is constituted by the Experiment, the GraspExperiment object in this case, with its associated parameters. Here we found the parameters that are defined in the source code of the experimental plugin

-If you need to vary some aspects of the experiment that are parametric (i.e. that cannot be configured through available parameters), you have to modify and recompile the source code of the experiment plugin (see [How to create a new experiment]).
+The fourth level (and last level in this case) include ten components: (i) The neural network controller of the robot (NET) with the associated parameters, (ii) The iCub Robot platform with its associated parameters, (iii) five sensor components with associated parameters, and (iv) three motor components with their associated parameters. 
+ 
+After having varied one or more parameters you can save the project and run your own variation of the experiment. 
+
+In the following documents of this section we will review the available components and parameters currently included in FARSA and the available graphic widgets. In the following section of the documentation we will explain how to configure and extend FARSA, i.e. how to vary characteristics that are not parametric.