Getting the Vehicle Simulation Package 

The Vehicles Simulation package is available on an as-is basis. The only thing I guarantee is that you might have fun or even learn something. I will answer questions or fix problems only as my time allows.

You can download, install and run the Vehicles simulation package by following the steps below.

Download the Vehicles executables

The executables are downloaded in a single zip file containing a Java jar file, documentation and several stand alone sample classes.
  1. Download the vehicles package, storing it on your hard drive.  The zip file is 178KB.
  2. Expand the zip file using any unzip utility. If you do not have an unzip utility on your system, you might try an evaluation copy of WinZip 7.0.
  3. Note the directory into which you unzipped the executables. Sample commands below assume you unzipped into c:\ .

Download and install the 1.1.7B JDK

The simulation code was developed using JDK 1.1.6, but any JDK 1.1.* should work. If you want only to run the samples, you can get by with only downloading the Java Runtime Environment. If you want to create your own vehicles or define your own simulations you'll need the full (JDK) Java Development Kit.
  1. To download the JDK, go to the JDK download page and follow the steps there.
  2. To download only the JRE, do to the JRE download page and follow the steps there.

Install the Vehicles executables

  1. You need to put the entire filename (drive, path and filename) of the vehicles.jar file into the classpath environment variable. The filename is:
    2.         <<vehicles root directory>>\vehicles\classes\vehicles.jar
    For example, if you had unzipped the above zip file into c:\ , your classpath should look like this: 
            CLASSPATH  ....;C:\VEHICLES\CLASSES\VEHICLES.JAR;....
  2. Reboot your machine.

Run the samples

  1. Change the current directory to the vehicles root directory (c:\vehicles in the above example)
  2. Run one of the sample simulations:
    3.         java DemoOne 10
    The number (10, in the above example) is the number of each type of vehicle to include in the simulation.
  3. When the simulation screen comes up, click on the "Run" menu item in the "Simulations" pull down menu to begin the simulation.
  4. To run other simulations, type one of the following.
    5.         java DemoTwo 80
            java DemoThree 20

Let me know what you think!

So that I can make this package better, I'd like to hear back from you. Do you have any new vehicle designs you'd like to try? I'd like to hear about your Braitenberg interests and thinking. Just drop me a note.

Thanks and have fun!