Evaluating the visual manipulation with cellular automata-like algorithms

The Active Knowledge Studio group at the University of Aizu is studying, designing, and developing multimedia programming environments for various domains. One of the promising domains is the cellular automata where the global behavior of systems arises from the collective effect of many locally interacting, simple components. The cellular automata (CA) systems have a rich theoretical basis. They have also been used in a great variety of applications. A number of programming languages and environments have been developed to support the implementation of the CA models. However, these languages focus on computational and performance issues only, and do not pay enough attention to programming productivity, usability, understandability, and other aspects of software engineering. We provide an outline of our approach to manipulating such systems in a visual user-oriented environment. Then, we explain features of the environment, present case studies, and describe the results of evaluating our visual environment.