This report provides a diagrammatic overview of the metaABM system. metaABM is designed to be a general representation or meta-model for Agent-Based Models. Models can be fully defined within the metaABM lingua franca and model implementations can then be generated from those models with no further coding or configuration. The metaABM system as whole currently provides a hierarchical visual editor and reference implementations targeting the Ascape and Repast Simphony platforms. metaABM is built upon the Eclipse Modeling Framework using the OpenArchitectureWare toolset. The metaABM system is fully integrated with the Eclipse IDE platform, but metaABM models themselves need have no dependencies on any particular technology beyond XML/XSD. We do not imagine that the meta-model covers every possible model instance, or that we have not overlooked important issues. But if nothing else we hope that this model serves as a useful "straw-agent" that the community can use to refine and explore key representational issues.
A note to non coders: In this report, we describe the metaABM system using UML style diagrams. Diagrams can cause instance eye-droop, but when depicting complex software interactions, pictures are worth more than a thousand words -- they are almost indispensable. Regardless of your level of familiarity with this approach, time spent understanding the following diagrams will help considerably in understanding the overall vision of the metaABM representation. A note to coders: On the other hand, when viewing these diagrams, it is important to toss out your conception of a typical UML Object Diagram. These diagrams do not represent objects, they represent meta-objects. So when we talk about an instance of SAgent, we are not talking about some particular agent, say a Sugarscape agent on some landscape. Instead an instance of SAgent represents an agent description for an entire type of agent. In that sense an SAgent is analogous to -- for example -- a SugarAgent Java class description, but more abstracted, implementation and language neutral, and focussed on the Agent-Based Modeling paradigm.How metaABM defines the physical -- for lack of a better word -- design of an agent-based model.
How metaABM defines the behvaior of an agent-based model.
How metaABM defines the functions and operators that may be used in an agent-based model.