Framsticks

FRED is a part of Framsticks project. Framsticks is three-dimensional life simulation project. The objective of Framsticks is to study evolution of artificial creatures in a computer-simulated world.

Nowadays Framsticks users can create or edit creatures only in a text editor. There is a growing need for these users to have a graphical editor. Such an application should give a possiblity to create new or modify existing creatures in an user-friendly way.

Editor will be a standalone program, which allows user to create organism without deeper knowledge of the genotype description language. Editing the organism will include both physical structure (body) and neural network (brain) design. Application should have ability to load Framsticks genotype files, present and edit organisms they describe, and save them in the same file format. It is desirable for the program to have an ability to cooperate with existing parts of Framsticks, i.e. genotype evaluator, possibly through the Internet.
Integral part of FRED project will be a simple viewer implemented as an applet which gives user only 3D view of particular organism described by the given genotype .

Program should be platform independent, so proposed technology is Java. The idea of the user interface will be similiar to the ones used in CAD applications or 3D modellers, i.e. 3D Studio.

1. The project is a student project. Thus, it cannot be critical for the customer. The Poznan University of Technology and the project stakeholders are not responsible for any damage resulting from late delivery of the product or from use of the product.
2. Students are expected to finish the project by June 30, 2002.
3. The total estimated effort of the developers (3rd year students) in the spring semester is about 4 persons x 15 weeks x 15 hours/week/person, i.e. it is about 900 hours.
4. For the sake of quality, the scope of the project must fit the estimated effort.
5. The customer representative engagement is crutial for the success of the project. He/she is the main source of domain knowledge and he is making the bussiness decisions to maximize value of the software product and to minimize the risk. Because of this customer representative should regulary attend project meetings at the university (in fall semester once a week, in spring semester once two weeks). Each meetings should not take longer than 90 minutes. Customer representative should also reserve some time for preparation to the meetings and to develope acceptance tests with help of Verification Manager who is an expert in technical aspects of testing.
6. The software developed in the project is a freeware open source code. The customer, as well as the students and the Poznan University of Technology, can use it to develope a commercial product. Other arrangement is possible assuming mutual agreement of all the parties.