Master's Thesis - Computer Graphics and Visualization - TU Delft

Feedbacks from the novices of Culgi
1) When the test subjects program in the sequence model for the first time, they don’t know which
modules are necessary to their task and how the ordering of the modules should be. They want to
get more help information on the general steps of the simulation program in the sequence model.
This problem happened because as novices of Culgi, they had no idea about how to build a
simulation program with Culgi. That’s why the concept model is designed. As described in
chapter 2, each kind of simulation program of Culgi has its own general structure. To build a valid
simulation program with the Culgi Library, these structures should be followed. The Concept
Model is designed to show the pipeline. Another solution to this problem is to add some
constraints on modules. For example, if Module A has to be before Module B, the module B
should not be created if module A has not been created yet. But this solution is not applied
because it is too complicated to enumerate all possibilities of on the constraints on modules.
2) The test subjects like the concept model because it provides templates to certain kinds of
programs. In this prototype, the template of “DPD simulation” programs is provided. In future,
other templates like “Mesodyn simulation” and “Hybrid simulation” should be provided.
3) About the names of the parameters of a module, the subjects have different opinions. For example,
the properties to a molecule or a bead. This is because in the different research areas, there are
various names to one property. This problem could be solved because with the Module Editor,
users can modify an existing module and save it as a user’s new module. For different users in
different fields, they can have their own modules.
4) The subjects also gave out some suggestions in default value of some parameters in the modules.
For example, a property which describes the interaction between two molecules, named “A”, has
the default value 25. But the users thought that this default value should change according to the
type of the modules. For example, this value of between two kinds of molecules should be 80, so
the default value in this case should be appeared as 80. This requirement cannot be solved in the
Culgi GPE level, because the Culgi GPE is just an interface on the Culgi Library. All the default
values to the properties are from the values of the Culgi Library.
Feedbacks from the skilled users of Culgi
1) The subjects like that each module has just one line of source code, because they are familiar with
commands in the Culgi Library. The advantage is that modules with one line of code can bring
them the same flexibility as in the text editor. In addition, compared to the modules with several
lines of code, modules with one line of code are something they were already familiar with. This
problem can be easily solved by the Module Editor (See 4.2.3 ). Users can make new modules as
they like with this tool.
2) They also like the concept model because it improves the programming efficiency if the template
of the target program is given. More templates should be provided in the future.
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