Page 182 - DCAP601_SIMULATION_AND_MODELING

Simulation and Modelling

Notes 6. Distributed models run on a network of interconnected computers, possibly through the
Internet. Simulations dispersed across multiple host computers like this are often referred
to as “distributed simulations”. There are several standards for distributed simulation,
including Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol (ALSP), Distributed Interactive Simulation
(DIS), the High Level Architecture (simulation) (HLA) and the Test and Training Enabling
Architecture (TENA).

CGI Computer Simulation

Formerly, the output data from a computer simulation was occasionally presented in a table, or
a matrix, showing how data was affected by numerous changes in the simulation parameters.
The use of the matrix format was related to traditional use of the matrix concept in mathematical
models; however, psychologists and others noted that humans could quickly perceive trends by
looking at graphs or even moving-images or motion-pictures generated from the data, as
displayed by computer-generated-imagery (CGI) animation. Although observers couldn’t
necessarily read out numbers, or spout math formulas, from observing a moving weather chart,
they might be able to predict events (and “see that rain was headed their way”), much faster than
scanning tables of rain-cloud coordinates. Such intense graphical displays, which transcended
the world of numbers and formulae, sometimes also led to output that lacked a coordinate grid
or omitted timestamps, as if straying too far from numeric data displays. Today, weather
forecasting models tend to balance the view of moving rain/snow clouds against a map that
uses numeric coordinates and numeric timestamps of events.
Likewise, CGI computer simulations of CAT scans can simulate how a tumor might shrink or
change, during an extended period of medical treatment, presenting the passage of time as a
spinning view of the visible human head, as the tumor changes.

Did u know? One more application of CGI computer simulations.
One more applications of CGI computer simulations are being developed to graphically
display large amounts of data, in motion, as changes occur during a simulation run.

Computer Simulation in Science

Figure 10.5: Computer Simulation of the Process of Osmosis

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