[dot] pushing KDE's science: Evolution Simulation

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1090909286/

From: Raphael Langerhorst <raphael-langerhorst at gmx.at>
Dept: playinG God
Date: Tuesday27/Jul/2004, @08:21

pushing KDE's science: Evolution Simulation
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   Ever dreamed of a nice piece of software that actually tries to
simulate the evolution of an universe? Ever thought it would be
possible? Now after a long time of planning and writing of some source
code a small group of developers goes public with their innovative
project: the G System.

     The G System, often simply called "G", is an effort to create
exactly this: simulation of evolution. This is both, a scientific
exercise and a virtual reality where many "users" can participate in an
ever changing, realistic and ... evolving universe.

     The goal is a virtual reality which can be experienced by users as
a realistic world and as a place for scientific development with a goal
of creating a realistic evolution simulation. The realism is not so much
of physical reality but more of a realistic human - and especially life
as a whole - evolution. This also means that nothing keeps us from
creating space shuttles that allows for exploring a whole solar system,
which can get quite fascinating ;)

     Currently the system is in an early stage of development. We have
come so far that we think it IS possible to create a realistic evolution
simulation and now we want to "bootstrap" development. That means we are
looking for contributers. If you are fascinated by the idea you probably
already fit the requirements, fascination is what drives development
forward. To get an overview of the technology that is covered/used by
the project, this list should help: network layer for a "grid" of server
systems as well as client connections, database systems, 3D client
application with KDE integration, artificial intelligence and some
common sense for evolution; Qt and KDE as base libraries. But this list
is not complete, there also are many areas where no special knowledge is
needed. And after all, everything can be learned.

     At the moment a small demo application is already available, it
currently shows that the core infrastructure works but doesn't provide
much in terms of virtual reality. A later release will bring the system
nearer to this goal and will let people enter this simulation
experience.

     For more information you can take a look at http://www.g-system.at
[http://www.g-system.at] (it is an international site, the .at domain
was just easier to get in our case). The source code release and the API
documentation are already available. Check out the page
[http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=14721] at
KDE-apps.org!