Changelog

Major changes from 1.9.2 to 1.9.3

This is a maintenance release, aiming at fixing bugs observed in 1.9.2 and improving stability and performances. The most important changes brought by this version are a dramatic improvement in compilation time and memory usage, especially useful for large models, and a rework of gama-server which is now also available in GUI mode and with added features for both GUI and headless use.

Detailed changes

This release of GAMA contains new features and fixes, including:

The use of java 17 is now forced for every part of gama (some modules were still requiring older versions)
Switch the 3d rendering library from Jzy3d 2.4-rc to JOGL 2.5.0
Improvement of the script gama-headless that previously wouldn't set gama correctly to handle recorded experiment
Restore the schedule facet that was wrongly removed
The headless script now loads the parameters from GAMA.ini if it's available
Some icons rendering have been improved
A new parameter to the darker operator has been added to set the percentage of darkness instead of the default 10% darker
The "insert template" menu options that were incomplete and not always working have been fixed
It is now possible to call variables defined in the experiment in the interactive console
The handling of error messages in the interactive console have been improved
In the editor information messages and warnings can now be displayed directly above the line instead of having to hover the icon. It can be turned on/off with a parameter in the settings
A new warning has been introduced when two displays have the same name in one experiment (can cause a lot of problems)
The use of gis files in a comodeling context used to raise exceptions and has been fixed
Some operators working with geometries now do a better job at converting their input arguments
Some fixes have been brought to the use of variables of type type and the type_of operator
A new built-in variable has been introduce: #user_location_in_display it represents the location of the mouse in the coordinates of the display, contrary to #user_location that is expressed in the world's coordinate system.
It is now possible to get the latest alpha version of GAMA through winget with the name GamaPlatform.GamaAlpha
GAMA is now based on eclipse 2023-09
A small gap has been added between layers in 3d to fight some rendering problems
The rendering of opengl displays has been improved and is now faster
The library Bullet, used for the physics skills has been updated to version 18.6.0
The use of the ask statement over the list simulations used to produce weird behaviours but has now been fixed
We can now use textures in 2D displays
The text output of the sobol analysis can now be exported to easy to handle csv
It is now possible to use box2D as a physics engine to efficiently emulate 2d worlds' physics
Operators antialiased, blurred and sharpened have a new parameter to define how many times they are going to be applied to the image and have been optimized
The displays are now automatically updated when toggling the antialiasing option
All agents have a new property index that represents their index in the the species
Some format issues in the save statement have been fixed
The display of wireframe circles in 3d has been fixed
Arc of circles were rendered with only half of the asked radius and it has been fixed
The depth parameter of the line operator is now taken into account and creates rectangles
Gama server now also runs in GUI mode and can be used to control the interface
The loading of models in gama-server has been optimized
The settings of gama-server (port, enabled/disabled, ping_interval) have been added to the settings window of gama
No more error raising when closing a physical simulation
Chart displays have been optimized and can now run forever without slowing down or increasing memory consumption
When using the accumulate_value facet for the data of a chart the x value is now updated instead of always using the first x value
The serialization engine XStream has completely been removed and replaced by FST, support for xml has been dropped in favor of json and binary
The operator to_json that transforms a map into a json formatted string has been introduced to replace as_json_string which is now deprecated
Gama-server sends a new kind of data: the simulation status when it's updated (loaded, paused etc.), mostly useful for interacting with GUI currently
The compilation of gaml models has been drastically improved and is now sped up and takes way less memory
An issue in the neighbors_at operator where it would not always pick the right geometry as a source in certain conditions has been fixed
The output of the stochastic analysis for the batch has been reworked
Some display problems in heatmap have been fixed
The operators to test types (is_shape, is_csv etc.) that were missing are back
It is now possible to have conditions in the displays
MQTT requests can now also benefit from the raw statement like other network protocols
Some bug have been fixed gama-server making it more resilient to client disconnection
Drawing speed has been improved
The position of scaled mesh layer was wrong and has been fixed
When deserializing a json containing an integer too big, it is now transformed into a float instead of raising an exception
The highlight functionality is back into the inspect panel
The use of keystone in displays with mesh was broken and is now fixed
The responsiveness of the code editor has been improved
The code coloration has been improved for some cases
The JGraphT library has been bumped to 1.5.2
A new command for gama-server is available: validate which can be used to check that a gaml expression is valid, either just syntactically or also semantically
Faster runtime access to species
Can now send step and stepBack commands with empty number of steps it will be considered as one step
Fixes the getStopCondition exception that would arise in headless legacy mode sometimes
Many runtime exception that were related to gama scope have been fixed, like the ones that could happen when inspecting an agent
Compilation errors that were sometimes shown on perfectly fine code have been fixed
The neighborhood of cells in hexagonal grids was sometimes wrong and has been fixed
Serialization of agents in list was broken and is now fixed
Deserialized agents are now added to the population of simulation
Some exceptions were raised in certain cases when clicking on buttons in the parameter view, this is now fixed
Using arithmetic operators on fields was causing side effects and has been fixed

Changes that can impact models

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that need to be written differently

View detailed changes

Now that all agents have an index property, it can conflict with models that used to have a property called index defined in their agent or just some variables called index in the code
Saving a simulation is now done in binary or json and not in xml as it was the case before. It is thus not possible to save a simulation or agents in an older version of GAMA and open it in 1.9.3 and conversely.
graphs cannot be drawn unless they are spatial graphs, an error is now raised if a model tries to do so

Preferences

Three new parameters have been introduced;

The enable server parameter can be used to activate or disactivate the gama-server mode in GUI
The server port parameter will on which port will gama-server listen when running in GUI
The server ping will set the interval between two pings sent by gama-server to keep alive connections with its client
The increment factor will set the value of a factor regulating the level of z-factor (for distance between layers in opengl displays)

Added models

The library of models has undergone some changes. Besides making sure all the models compile and run fine under the new version of GAMA, it also brings some new models, which are listed below:

View all new models list

The model Box2D Library.gaml to demonstrate the use of box2d as a physics engine
The model Serialization to Json.gaml to showcase how to serialize objects into json in gama as well as deserialize json formatted strings into gama objects
The model 2 External GAMA controller.gaml can be used to understand how to use an external program (in this case html) to control gama through gama-server
A few classic video games like Flappy bird.gaml, pacman and tetris
The model Conditional aspect selection.gaml to showcase how to select different aspects in displays according to some external condition

Major changes from 1.9.1 to 1.9.2

The GAMA development team is pleased to announce the release of GAMA 1.9.2. This is a maintenance release, aiming at fixing bugs observed in 1.9.1 and clarifying some of its concepts. No new major feature has been added, except the possibility to define #mouse_drag events.

Detailed changes

This release of GAMA contains new features and fixes, including:

2D displays can now also be locked (only from the user interface currently)
A new event has been introduced: mouse_drag, an example is available in the model library: msi.gama.models/models/Visualization and User Interaction/User Interaction/models/Mouse Drag.gaml
Fixes potential issues with user_location on touch screens
Fixes many issues on keyboard events (see issue #3770, and this commit)
Fixes control buttons not updating while in fullscreen (#3769)
Fixes the saving of matrices using the save statement that was faulty for non-square matrices
Fixes the casting from matrix to string that was faulty for non-square matrices
Adds the operator exp_rnd to generate a random number following an exponential distribution (example in msi.gama.models/models/Visualization and User Interaction/Visualization/Charts/models/Distribution.gaml)
Various fixes and improvements for the reading/writing of csv files (see this commit, this one, this one and this issue)
Fixes bugs in the gaml editor when a display didn't contain any code
Improves the display of fields/mesh (#3796)
Fixes runtime error happening in torus models in certain cases (#3783)
Improvement of the type inference system for matrices (#3792)
Fixes hpc flag being ignored in some cases in headless mode (#3687)
Fixes a bug in save_simulation where simulations with variables of type font couldn't be saved (#3815)
Fixes default camera in 3d displays not being applied unless explicitly written (#3811)
Enables steps in loop statement to be of float type instead of silently casting it to int (#3810)
Type casting has been made more consistent (see #3809 for colors, #3803 for lists and #3806 for pairs )
Improves memory management when drawing images (see this commit)
Fixes rendering issues in documentation navigation within gama on windows (#3804)
Better handling of HTTP responses (see this commit)
Fixes runtime errors happening in some models with dynamic cameras (#3821)
Fixes issues related to search dialog in the help menu for macOS (#3829 and #3828)
Fixes some issues leading Morris exploration not being run (see this commit)
Makes gama-server able to execute multiple commands at the same time in parallel for each client (see this commit)
Adds an optional keepalive function to gama-server (see this commit)
Fixes exception raising sometimes when clients disconnect from gama-server (see this commit)
Splitting the gama-server command fetch into two commands: upload and download
Adding some verification on the format and types for the parameters option of the load and reload commands of gama-server
Renaming the memorize type into record
Introducing compress facet to indicate if a memorize/record experiment should use compression (reduces memory usage but increase computation time)
Introducing different formats used internally for memorize/record experiments that can be: xml, the legacy one, or two new ones: json and binary (both faster and more memory efficient) and can be set with the format facet of the experiment.
Fixing issues in the script gama-headless.sh used in macOS (#3766 and this commit)
Multiple fixes on the moran operator (see this issue, this commit and this one)
Fixing the shortcut for code suggestion in macOS (#3852)
ASC file using dx/dy format can now be read too
Big memory leaks have been fixed for operations on images
Miscellaneous internal/architecture improvements
Fixes exceptions raised in tabu searches in some cases
Fixes the copy operator on shape variables
New splash screen
Improves the navigation in the parameter by not refreshing it completely when one parameter changes (for example in batch mode)
Fixes the initialisation order for experiment parameters
Various general fixes in the display of svg
All the geometries defined in an svg file are now accessible separately (allowing to draw only some of them, or to have different color for each for example)
Adds a parameter to set an automatic z increment in between layers in opengl

Changes that can impact models

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that need to be written differently

View detailed changes

All skills belonging to the "driving" skill have been renamed for more intuitive names, the skill advanced_driving has been replaced by driving, the skill skill_road is replaced by road_skill and skill_road_node is replaced by intersection_skill
The loop statements using a step facet are not casting the step value into an int anymore which means that if you had loops that used float variables as a step, they may behave differently.
casting colors (rgb type) into different types changed in some cases:
- casting an rgb into a float now returns the same result as casting to an int instead of returning 0
- casting an rgb into a point now returns a point formed like this {red, green, blue} instead of {0,0,0}
- casting an rgb into a list now returns a list of its four components: red, green, blue and alpha instead of just red, green and blue
casting a string into a list now returns a list of string composed of all the letters of the original string. For example: list("some string") will return this list: ["s", "o", "m", "e", " ", "s", "t", "r", "i", "n", "g"]
casting into a pair has been homogenized, overall most cases are kept unchanged but some fringe cases are eliminated. The general rule is that casting anything into a pair will now result in a pair where the first and the second elements are the same initial object. For example: pair([1,2,3]) will return this pair: [1,2,3]::[1,2,3]. The only exceptions are casting a pair into a pair which will result in no change, and casting a map into a pair that will result in a pair where the first element is the list of keys of the map and the second is the list of values of the map.
The gama-server command fetch has been split into two different commands: upload and download and cannot be used anymore. See here the documentation on how to use those commands.
The type of experiment memorize should be renamed record. In addition there's now two additional facets you can set for memorize/record experiments: format and compress. The format facet indicates the internal format used to save each step, and can be "xml", "binary" or "json". The compress facet indicates whether or not the saved step should be compressed or not. Compressed ones will take less memory in the long run, but will take more time to save/load.

Preferences

The description of all preferences can be found at this page. A number of new preferences have been added to cover existing or new aspects of the platform.

Bug fixes

You can also check the complete list of the closed issues on the github repository. Keep in mind that this list is incomplete as a lot of problems where solved without being linked to any issue on github (via the mailing list or internally for example).

Added models

The library of models has undergone some changes. Besides making sure all the models compile and run fine under the new version of GAMA, it also brings some new models, which are listed below:

View all new models list

A model to showcase the use of SVG files: ummisco.gaml.extensions.image/models/Images/models/SVG Manipulation.gaml
An example model to test the new mouse_drag event: msi.gama.models/models/Visualization and User Interaction/User Interaction/models/Mouse Drag.gaml
Pedestrian movement following Mehdi Moussaid's model: msi.gama.models/models/Toy Models/Pedestrian/models/Moussaid model.gaml
A new example of data importation to get a mapbox image as a background of the simulation: msi.gama.models/models/Data/Data Importation/models/MapBox Image Import As Background Image.gaml

Previous major changes since 1.8.1 brought by 1.9.1

The GAMA development team is pleased to announce the release of GAMA 1.9.1

This version, while maintaining the power, stability, expressiveness and ease of use of GAMA, brings new capabilities and openings to the platform, making it even more intuitive to use by modelers and even more versatile in terms of applications.

This major release of GAMA contains many new features and fixes, including:

A much more fluid and powerful IDE, offering support for all the latest technologies, from HiDPI displays to JDK 17 and Apple Silicon processors.
A new server mode of GAMA, offering a clear and extensible exchange protocol, which completely revolutionizes the way to interact with the platform from R, Python or any web client.
Increased model exploration possibilities thanks to new calibration and optimization methods, also directly usable in the server mode.
The addition of the two new data types field and image, which make it even easier to load, analyze, visualize and produce raster data
A much more powerful graph manipulation than previous versions, but still easy to couple with agents
A focus on urban mobility applications, with skill advanced_driving and pedestrian, which make it much easier to produce realistic large-scale models.
The possibility to simulate physical interactions between agents thanks to the new skills static_body, dynamic_body and physical_simulation, which rely on the native bullet library.
New and faster display capabilities, offering more intuitive handling of agents and organisation of display surfaces, making it easier than ever to build interactive simulations, serious games or advanced scientific visualisations.

Comparison chart

	Gama 1.8.1	Gama 1.9.1
Java and environments	Java 11 and x86 (intel architecture)	Java 17, x86 and ARM architectures (notably Apple Silicon)
Server mode	-	Headless server / connection with Python and R
Model exploration	Exhaustive sampling and calibration	Several new sampling methods (e.g. latinhypercube), sensitivity analysis (e.g. Sobol) and calibration
Physics modeling	Limited	Extended features with native bullet library and influences/forces computations
Mobility modeling	`moving` and `driving` skills	`moving`, `advanced_driving` (non normative traffic) and `pedestrian` (Social force model) skills
Raster data integration	Limited with `grid` (bad performances above 500x500)	New `field` and `image` types allow larger sizes and better performances
Graph integration	Programmatic with fixed layout	Import / export to 6 graph file formats (e.g. .graphml, .gml) with various spatial layouts rendering

Detailed changes

View detailed changelog

GAMA Server mode

gama-server is a new way of running GAMA experiments. It consists of an instance of gama-headless that, once launched, waits for commands sent through websockets and executes them. These commands follow a clear and extensible protocol, enabling its use in many contexts, from the definition of experiment plans in R to the design of dashboards in JavaScript. See the corresponding wiki page to setup a server instance of Gama.

Modelling improvements

`field` type

A new variable type (field) to support the management (import and use) of large raster geographic data. It allows in particular to:

import large mono/multi-band rasters
simply access / modify values of spatial grids as simply as before, but with very high performance improvement

Try out:

Basic syntax to create and visualize fields: Fields.gaml
Basic syntax to access/write values in fields: Accessing Fields.gaml
Use of field to superpose information in a trafic simulation: Traffic and Pollution.gaml
Use of field to represent flows (water): Waterflow Field Elevation.gaml
Use of field to support diffusion process: Anisotropic Diffusion & Uniform Diffusion

`image` type

Easier to work with images

Try out:

Basic syntax to create an image: Declaring Images.gaml
Basic syntax to manipulate an image: Image Manipulation.gaml
Save snapshot of a simulation displays: Manual Snapshot.gaml

`pedestrian` skill

A new plugin has been integrated in GAMA that allows to simulate pedestrian movement. This plugin uses Helbing's social force model as a basis to support pedestrian walk and offers tools to reconstruct paths from an open environment and obstacles. This two new features are identified by a skill (pedestrian) and an operator (generate_pedestrian_network) respectively. You can find examples in the models below.

Try out:

How to build the pedestrian network that agents use to manage the origin and destination of their trip in the open environment: Generate pedestrian paths.gaml
A comprehensive list of the parameters that makes it possible how agent avoid obstacles, in a simple (Simple environment - walk_to.gaml) and a complex (Complex environment - walk.gaml) environment

`advanced_driving` skill

The driving skill has been completely redesigned in order to offer a more realistic representation of driver behavior (by explicitly using the Intelligent Driver Model and Lane-change Model MOBIL) and by allowing to take into account multi-lane vehicles - this allows for example to simulate mixed traffic composed of motorcycles and cars. Besides, the behavior of drivers can be custom to represent non normative behavior, such as dangerous take-off, disrespect of signals, signs, speed limit or road direction and lanes.

Try out:

An abstract representation of vehicles size (bus, car, motorcycle) and free use of road lanes and direction (Drive Random.gaml)
An abstract representation of vehicles managing cross section, with collision avoidance, priority, etc. (Simple Intersection.gaml)
A very small road system with stops to simulate congestion (Following Paths.gaml)

Physics extension improvement

Physics plugin has been completely rewritten and allows to use native implementations of the bullet library in a redesigned framework (where physical agents can coexist with non-physical ones).

Try out:

Interaction between static (skill static_body) and dynamic (skill dynamic_body) 3D objects (Eroding Vulcano.gaml)
Manage 3D objects movement based on a Digital Elevation Model (Flow on Terrain.gaml)

Experiment

Batch methods

Batch experiments have been reworked to better distinguish simulation exploration and model calibration. On the first hand, modelers should engage in simulation exploration if they want to launch many simulations across the parameter space, better understand the contribution of stochasticity and evaluate the specific contribution of given parameters to output variability. On the other hand, modelers should use calibration methods if they want to find parameters values of the models, so the simulation outputs are as close as possible to desired ones. A detailed description is provided in this wiki page.

Try out:

A walkthrough of all provided methods to explore, method exploration, and analyse the sensitivity of your model, including a tool to decide method stochanalyse or method sobol (Exploration.gaml)
A walkthrough of minimal way to setup calibration, including the new PSO algorithm (Calibration.gaml)

Headless batch

We implement a way to launch Gama batch experiment in headless with a simple command line, using the gama-headless.sh bash script with -batch option. For more information, see the related (wiki page).

Reproducibility and random number generation

Great effort towards tracking and limiting the use of random generators outside the ones built in GAMA
Addition of several new random number generators

Displays

OpenGL improvements

Great improvements have been done on the displays and specifically on opengl ones. Key points are:

Lot faster (2 times) on geometries
Rendering of large-scale images, grids, fields or matrices using the new mesh layer, with several colouring options
More flexibility:
camera statement to specify the dynamic movements of the camera
light statements to specify the lighting(s) of the scene
rotate statement to specify the rotation of the full screen
Better and more accurate rendering of texts (with 3D, etc.)
Possibility to choose between several predefined cameras, to save cameras, etc.

`mesh` layer

display large rasters

`layout` improvements

Allow to easily split or compose the displays
Possibility to define borderless displays

User Interface

Support of HiDPI

HiDPI and various "display zooms" are now supported natively. Displays, text and icons scale up and down accordingly. Only issues remaining is that the text and icons can be blurry and pixelised on some configurations (Windows 10, Windows 11 with 150% zoom, etc.)

Support of dark mode

Light and dark modes are also now supported out of the box. Preferences allow GAMA to impose its own theme or follow the one defined in the OS. A new syntax highlighting theme for dark mode is accessible from the preferences too.

User Interaction

Addition of wizards and dialogs

It is now possible to open wizards and dialogs from the GAML code thanks to the user_confirm, user_input_dialog, wizard and wizard_page operators.

Try out:

How to define a new wizard (Wizard.gaml)
detailed use of the new user_input (User input.gaml)

Addition of events

new events can be defined as display layers: #arrow_down, #arrow_up, #arrow_left, #arrow_right, #escape, #tab, #enter, #page_up, #page_down

Clipboard

the clipboard can be written and read using the copy_to_clipboard(value) and copy_from_clipboard(type) operators

Advanced programming usages

Additions to GAML

on_change: facet can be added to attributes and parameters to trigger any behaviour in response to a change of value. Particularly useful for defining interactive parameters.
abort statement can be defined in any agent (incl. global and experiment) and executed just before the agent is disposed of.

`thread` skill

The new thread skill allows to run actions in a specific thread. In particular, this skill is intended to define the minimal set of behaviours required for agents that are able to run an action in a thread.

File manipulations: `copy`, `zip`, `delete`, `save` improvements

One can now completely manipulate files directly in the gama models with dedicated copy_file, delete_file, rename_file(which can be used to move a file), zip and unzip operators.
save accepts more file formats and provides a hook for developers to develop ISaveDelegates

`network` skill improvements

To increase the integration between Gama and other applications we improved a lot the network capabilities:

The communication with web-services is now easier with the possibility to execute post/get/update/delete HTTP requests directly in gaml with extensions of the send action of the networking skill, as described in the HTTP POST.gaml and HTTP GET.gaml of the Plugin models library.
Adding support for the websocket protocol in the network skill
General work on the network skill with communication outside of Gama in mind

Graph improvements

Shortest paths

Integration of new algorithms for computing shortest paths in graphs.

BidirectionalDijkstra: default one - ensure to find the best shortest path - compute one shortest path at a time: https://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucahmto/math/2020/05/30/bidirectional-dijkstra.html
DeltaStepping: ensure to find the best shortest path - compute one shortest path at a time: The delta-stepping algorithm is described in the paper: U. Meyer, P. Sanders, $\Delta$-stepping: a parallelizable shortest path algorithm, Journal of Algorithms, Volume 49, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 114-152, ISSN 0196-6774
CHBidirectionalDijkstra: ensure to find the best shortest path - compute one shortest path at a time. Based on precomputations (first call of the algorithm). Implementation of the hierarchical query algorithm based on the bidirectional Dijkstra search. The query algorithm is originally described the article: Robert Geisberger, Peter Sanders, Dominik Schultes, and Daniel Delling. 2008. Contraction hierarchies: faster and simpler hierarchical routing in road networks. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Experimental algorithms (WEA'08), Catherine C. McGeoch (Ed.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 319-333
TransitNodeRouting: ensure to find the best shortest path - compute one shortest path at a time. Based on precomputations (first call of the algorithm). The algorithm is designed to operate on sparse graphs with low average outdegree. the algorithm is originally described the article: Arz, Julian & Luxen, Dennis & Sanders, Peter. (2013). Transit Node Routing Reconsidered. 7933. 10.1007/978-3-642-38527-8_7.

Input/ouput

You can now load / save your graph into dedicated file format such as .gml, .dot or .gefx to build your graph.

Try out:

Load agents from a graph file (Graph Agents Importation.gaml)
Load the entire graph from files (Graph Importation.gaml)
Save graphs into dedicated files format (Save Graphs.gaml)

Layout

Non spatial graph can be rendered using operators to locate nodes on a circle, as a grid lattice or considering connection as forces.

OS and computing environments

GAMA 1.9.1 has been tested on:

Windows 10 and 11 on Intel processors
MacOS Monterey, Ventura on Intel & Apple Silicon computers
Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 on Intel processors

Note that this version drops the support for 32 bits architectures.

Support of JDK 17+

Gama 1.9.1 brings compatibility with JDK17+ and should remain compatible for the following JDK versions.

Support of ARM processors

A specific version of GAMA is now built for Apple Silicon processors on macOS. Even if no specific version is produced for the ARM version of Windows, reports show that it works well in emulated mode.

New installers for Windows, Mac (brew) and Linux (aur, deb)

Gama 1.9.1 comes with a dedicated installer for every platform, so it's easier for newcomers to get it working. In addition, the macOS version is now fully signed. Linux and macOS users can also benefit from CLI installers.

New versions of native libraries: SWT, JTS, GeoTools, bullet, JOGL, JGraphT

All the major libraries on which GAMA is relying have been bumped to their latest versions, except GeoTools (version 25) and JGraphT (version 1.5.1).

Changes that can impact models

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that cannot be used anymore

gama.pref_lib_r, gama.pref_lib_spatialite, gama.pref_optimize_agent_memory, gama.pref_display_triangulator have been removed
In experiment, the method statement exhaustive and explicit does not exist anymore. Use exploration instead, see the related documentation on batch.
the material type (and the corresponding material: facet in draw:) does not exist anymore and has not been replaced.
the built-in equation types (SIR, etc.) do not exist anymore and have not been replaced.
field cannot be used anymore as a species or variable name.
image cannot be used anymore as a species or variable name.
to_list cannot be used anymore as a species or variable name.

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that need to be written differently

timeStamp() in SQLSKILL does not exist anymore. Use machine_time instead.
dem(...) operators do not exist anymore. Use a combination of field and mesh layer to load and draw a digital elevation model
event ['k'] should be rewritten as event 'k'.
generate_complete_graph, generate_barabasi_albert, generate_watts_strogatz, and as_distance_graph now take different arguments. Please refer to their documentation.
load_graph_from_file has been removed and replaced by the use of the corresponding graph file types (graphml_file, etc.)
simplex_generator has been removed and replaced by generate_terrain

🟠 Warnings 🟠:

grid + lines: is deprecated and replaced by border:
save + type: is deprecated and replaced by format:
display + draw_env: is deprecated and replaced by axes:
display + synchronized: is deprecated. synchronized: should now be defined on output:
display + camera_pos: is deprecated. Should be replaced by location: defined on a camera statement inside the display
display + camera_interaction: is deprecated. Should be replaced by locked: defined on a camera statement inside the display
display + camera_up_vector: is deprecated. Not used anymore.
display + camera_look_pos: is deprecated. Should be replaced by target: defined on a camera statement inside the display
display + focus: is deprecated. Should be replaced by target: defined on a camera statement inside the display
display + ambient_light: is deprecated. Should be replaced by intensity: defined on a light #ambient statement inside the display
light + position: is deprecated and replaced by location:
light + update: is deprecated and replaced by dynamic:
light + color: is deprecated and replaced by intensity:
light + name: now takes a string and not an int
light + draw_light: is deprecated and replaced by show:
light + type: now takes a string among #spot, #point or #direction
user_input is deprecated and should be replaced by user_input_dialog
draw + empty: is deprecated and replaced by wireframe:
image (layer) + file: is deprecated and replaced by the direct use of the file name as the default facet
event now takes a string for its default facet (preferably the defined constants like #mouse_move, #left_arrow, etc.)
event + action: is deprecated as the definition of the action should directly follow the statement definition
the with_optimizer_type operator is deprecated and replaced by with_shortestpath_algorithm

Preferences

The description of all preferences can be found at this page. A number of new preferences have been added to cover existing or new aspects of the platform. They are summarised below.

New preferences

Interface tab

Startup Remember Gama windows sizes
Startup Several prompts related to the use of workspaces
Startup Setup a model to run at start

Editors tab

Edition More options (3) for automatic typing
Edition Turns experiment buttons into a drop down list
Syntax Coloring according to Gama theme (light|dark)

Execution tab

(New) Parameters Customize parameter view
Parallelism Use all available threads in batch mode

Display tab

Chart preferences Choose resolution of charts
(Removed) Advanced
OpenGL Limit the number of frames
OpenGL Sensitivity of keyboard/mouse/trackpad
OpenGL Ambiant light intensity
OpenGL Default camera orientation

Data and Operator

Random Number Generator Display RNG in parameter view
(Removed) Optimization Many options have been removed to enforce reproducibility

(New) Experimental

This tab holds experimental preferences that should be use with care

Setting and sharing preferences

Gama 1.9.1 brings new options for setting preferences and sharing them among models.

Passing preferences to GAMA at startup

Modellers running the headless or gui versions of GAMA can now pass preferences to the executable using arguments (either in the headless script or in the Gama.ini file). The syntax is -Dpref_name=value (for instance -Dpref_display_synchronized=true to synchronise displays, including snapshots of headless GAMA, with the simulation).

Global or workspace scopes

The default behaviour of GAMA makes sharing preferences between workspaces and models easy, since they are global to the user account. In some instances, however, it can be necessary to restrict them to a local scope (i.e. a workspace). In that case, launching GAMA with the -Duse_global_preference_store=false will make it save its preferences in the current workspace and not globally anymore.

Bug fixes

You can also check the complete list of the closed issues on the github repository. Keep in mind that this list is incomplete as a lot of problems where solved without being linked to any issue on github (via the mailing list or internally for example).

Added models

The library of models has undergone some changes. Besides making sure all the models compile and run fine under the new version of GAMA, it also brings some new models, which are listed below:

Usage of the `pedestrian` skill

New `graph` capabilities

Utilities

Elements of GAML syntax

New `batch` capabilities

Toy models

Declaration and usage of `field`

New user interaction modalities

New `camera` and `light` definitions

Physics engine demonstrations

New `driving` skill

New network capabilities

Usage of the `image` type

New mathematical tests

Home

What's new (Changelog)

Changelog

Changelog

Major changes from 1.9.2 to 1.9.3

Detailed changes

Changes that can impact models

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that need to be written differently

Preferences

Added models

Major changes from 1.9.1 to 1.9.2

Detailed changes

Changes that can impact models

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that need to be written differently

Preferences

Bug fixes

Added models

Previous major changes since 1.8.1 brought by 1.9.1

Comparison chart

Detailed changes

GAMA Server mode

Modelling improvements

field type

image type

pedestrian skill

advanced_driving skill

Physics extension improvement

Experiment

Batch methods

Headless batch

Reproducibility and random number generation

Displays

OpenGL improvements

mesh layer

layout improvements

User Interface

Support of HiDPI

Support of dark mode

User Interaction

Addition of wizards and dialogs

Addition of events

Clipboard

Advanced programming usages

Additions to GAML

thread skill

File manipulations: copy, zip, delete, save improvements

network skill improvements

Graph improvements

Shortest paths

Input/ouput

Layout

OS and computing environments

Support of JDK 17+

Support of ARM processors

New installers for Windows, Mac (brew) and Linux (aur, deb)

New versions of native libraries: SWT, JTS, GeoTools, bullet, JOGL, JGraphT

Changes that can impact models

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that cannot be used anymore

🔴 Errors 🔴: concepts that need to be written differently

🟠 Warnings 🟠:

Preferences

New preferences

Interface tab

Editors tab

Execution tab

Display tab

Data and Operator

(New) Experimental

Setting and sharing preferences

Passing preferences to GAMA at startup

Global or workspace scopes

Bug fixes

Added models

Usage of the pedestrian skill

New graph capabilities

Utilities

Elements of GAML syntax

New batch capabilities

Toy models

Declaration and usage of field

New user interaction modalities

New camera and light definitions

`field` type

`image` type

`pedestrian` skill

`advanced_driving` skill

`mesh` layer

`layout` improvements

`thread` skill

File manipulations: `copy`, `zip`, `delete`, `save` improvements

`network` skill improvements

Usage of the `pedestrian` skill

New `graph` capabilities

New `batch` capabilities

Declaration and usage of `field`

New `camera` and `light` definitions

New `driving` skill

Usage of the `image` type