Amino Introduction

Amino is first and foremost an application framework (Java) based on the MVC pattern made famous by the SmallTalk community. What this means is that the application objects tend to fall into 1 of 3 groups: Model, View, or Controller. There are some other types involved, but they are decorations to the normal MVC pattern.

The initial goal for Amino is to serve as the foundation for a modeling and simulation application - specifically for supporting modeling of multi-body systems (mechanical engineering.) However the Amino framework has been designed to support virtually any type of simulation, in any domain. This is a large challenge, but not as much as actually implementing meaningful applications in other domains - due to time.

A major design consideration for the Amino API was allowing the flexibility of making Amino a distributed application. Distributed applications fall under many types: multi-user, multi-server, multi-OS, etc. Amino's framework does not preclude any of these, nor any combination of these. However, collaboration is the strongest argument for pursuing distributed technologies within this framework. Therefore the API was created (and the distribution directory structure) in such a way as to maximize flexibility in using distributed technology packages, and keep the maintenance and design challenges to a minimum.

Current (pre-alpha) Features

• Runs a simulation: John Conway's Game Of Life;
• Runs in local or distributed (OpenORB) mode;
• View objects in either 'schematic' or 'physical' mode;
• In Physical modeling: Compute point positions across ReferenceFrames;

Future Features

• Load/Save models from file;
• Locate remote Model/Object servers;
• Collaboration between remote parties, in model and view;
• Create models from visual components;
• Dynamic systems model: Newton-Raphson iterations of closed-link mechanical systems
• Model other domains: chemistry, economics, human behavior, life systems
• Edit model objects on-the-fly
• Graph data, data logging, etc.

Since this is a volunteer open source project, development is slow. You're welcome to begin contributing no matter your skill level. If the documentation doesn't already exist on this web-site, it'll be created for you, upon request. All you need to do is ask, and be patient. This is meant to be a project for learning and exploration.

Try running the applet here.
To try it out, go to the Distribution page.

Some Screen Shots:

Figure 1: This is John Conway's 'Game Of Life' (build.sh run-gol)

Figure 2: This is basically a test for running the 3-D reference-frame rendering and testing the 3-D transformation algorithms. (build.sh run-pe)

Look carefully for the Red frame whose Z-axis always points to the Green's origin (global frame)

Figure 3: This illustrates a "schematic view" for objects, showing relationships

	John 3:16-21 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.