PTOLEMY II - CiteSeerX

2
Using Vergil
Authors: Edward A. Lee
Steve Neuendorffer
2.1 Introduction
There are many ways to use Ptolemy II. It can be used as a framework for assembling software
components, as a modeling and simulation tool, as a block-diagram editor, as a system-level rapid prototyping
application, as a toolkit supporting research in component-based design, or as a toolkit for
building Java applications. This chapter introduces its use as a modeling and simulation tool.
In this chapter, we describe how to graphically construct models using Vergil, a graphical user
interface (GUI) for Ptolemy II. Figure 2.1 shows a simple Ptolemy II model in Vergil, showing the
graph editor, one of several editors available in Vergil. Keep in mind as you read this document that
graphical entry of models is only one of several possible entry mechanisms available in Ptolemy II. For
example, you can define models in Java, as shown in figure 1.5, or in XML, as shown in figure 1.3 of
the previous chapter. Moreover, only some of the execution engines (called domains) are described
here. A major emphasis of Ptolemy II is to provide a framework for the construction of modeling and
design tools, so the specific modeling and design tools described here should be viewed as representative
of our efforts.
2.2 Quick Start
This section shows how to start Vergil, how to execute and explore pre-built models, and how to
construct your own models.
2.2.1 Starting Vergil
First start Vergil. From the command line, enter “vergil”, or select Ptolemy II and Vergil in the
Start menu 1 , or click on a Web Start link on a web page supporting the web edition. You should see an
Heterogeneous Concurrent Modeling and Design 45