Carmma User Guide
Daniel Wiesmann, Duke Lee
Carmma is a tool that allows a user to specify complex highway
scenarios, animate them, and create data files that can be used to
create realistic smartPATH-style movies. The program can run on
Windows 95/NT machines as well as in the Unix environment.
Snapshop Editor
To create and modify snapshots, press the SnapShot button in
the main window, pictured in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Carmma Main Window
The Snapshot Manager window shown in Figure 2 allows you to
create snapshots. From the File menu, you can use the following
commands:
- New
-
Creates a new file. The default name for a file is highway.hwy. The
file is actually not created and written to until you Save
information to it.
- Open
- Opens an existing "hwy" file.
- Save
- Saves the current snapshot information to a file.
- Close
- Closes the Snapshot Manager window.
To start creating snapshots, you must first specify a file
name. Select New or Open from the menubar and open a
file. The name of the file you are working with appears after the
File label in the window. To create a new snapshot, select the
New Snapshot button. Then you will be prompted to input the
number of the lanes and length of the highway you want to
simulate. These two values have to be integers.
Figure 2: Snapshot Manager
Road Snapshot
The snapshot window allows you to create and delete cars, change the
position of the vehicles and/or change their speed profiles. A sample
road snapshot window is pictured in Figure 3. If you Close the
snapshot, all the modifications will be discarded. If you
Commit the snapshot, the snapshot information will be
saved. You can also choose to edit the previously created snapshots by
clicking on the list box.
You want to be careful here, since modification that was made in
the current snapshot window (if there is one) will be destroyed. You
want to save the change by commiting your work, before you choose to
edit another snap shot.
Creating, Moving, and Deleting Vehicles
- Create Cars
- Press button 1 when you mouse points to the spot in the road where you
want to create the car.
- Delete Cars
- Press button 2 on the car you want to delete.
- View Cars
- Double-click on button 1 to see a car's information.
- Move Cars
- Drag and drop.
To create a vehicle, click on the road at the position you wish to place
the vehicle at. A pop-up window will ask you to specify the car's longitudinal
velocity and will allow you to modify its x position. To delete a vehicle,
use the second button on your mouse. You may drag cars around if you wish
to correct their location.
Figure 3: Road Snapshot
Snapshop Viewer and SmartPath file creation
To view the animation of a highway file, click on View in the
main menu. You may animate any "hwy" file. The animation
window consits of the Control menu and the Zoom
menu.
To play the animation, select Play from the
Control menu. To produce a SmartPATH data file for video-tape
creation, press the Record option. The Zoom In and
Zoom Out options allow you to control the view of the animation.
Figure 4: Zoomed Animation Window
Changes since last release
- Number of lanes and length of the highway are
parameterized.
-
You will be prompted to supply this information at the time of the
creation of a new file. (Your old *.hwy files that were created with
last version are still valid. You will be prompted for the extra
information when opening the old file).
- Edit your snapshots or create snapshots in between the
snapshots.
-
When you create a new vehicle in the past (before
the last snapshot), the new vehicle will automatically be added to
"future" snapshots that you have already created. However
you will need to go back to the "future" snap shots and
re-position the new vehicle since the location of the vehicle will
simply be copied over to the next snap shots. When you delete a
vehicle in past, however, the change will not be carried over. This
means that you will need to delete the vehicle in the future as
well. (that is if you don't want the vehicle in the future).
- You are allowed to use time that is non-integer.
Direct your questions to either Daniel or Duke
To install Carmma, follow these directions.