By Kenneth Stanley

kstanley@cs.utexas.edu
Also see README_EN.TXT or README_IT.txt
-Open a console (where you can type commands) and
change to the directory C:\jes\gui
The compilation files assume this path! If the path
changes, you much change the .bat files in \gui
to reflect the new path. (In Linux, you would
need to edit the .sh files in /gui).
-Make sure the .bat or .sh files refer to the right version
and path for java. For example, the provided files may
try to access 1.3.1, whereas you may have 1.4.0. In such a case,
all you need to do is change the paths accordingly. There
should be no problem.
(NOTE: more information about compiling and starting for Windows or Linux
is in the README_EN.TXT or README_IT.txt files)
-Inside the console, provided you are in c:\jes\gui, now type
run gui.MainGui
In linux, you type ./run.sh gui.MainGui.
-You should see the NEAT Java simulator pop up. If you don't, check
the paths in RUN.bat or run.sh.
-There are 4 panels at the top. Make sure you are in the leftmost one,
"jneat parameter."
-Click "Load default"
NEAT's default parameters are loaded. Note that Ugo (the Java code author)
has set the parameters for mutate_add_node_prob and mutate_add_link_prob
both to 0.05. This is fine, but it makes more sense to add links faster
than adding nodes, so I would edit the parameters and change the
mutate_add_node_prob to 0.03 and mutate_add_link_prob to 0.08 for better
performance.
-Whether or not you edit the parameters, click "Write," which finalizes your
parameters.
-Click on the "session parameter" tab for the "session parameter" panel
-Don't worry about this looking confusing!! You can ignore most of the
stuff here if you just want to get going fast. First, click
"Load sess default"
-Look for the word "epoch" in the file displayed at the right.
how long it should run before forcing evolution to stop. If
next to epoch is small, like 10, this will lead to premature
your results will be very uninteresting. I suggest changing
at least 100, so you can evolution run for some time.

This tells NEAT

the number
stopping and
it to

-Whether or not you edited the parameters, click "Write sess" to register the
parameter file
-Now click "Load class fitness." This loads Java code specific to the XOR
problem.

-Click "COMPILE" to dynamically compile the fitness code

-Now click "Load class data input," which loads the code for inputting data
for XOR.
-Click "COMPILE"
-Now click "Load class data target"
-Click "COMPILE"
NEAT is now set to run XOR experiments: all relevant code has been integrated
into
the system.
-Click on the "start simulation" tab
-This panel is fun to work with and quite easy and informative. If you click
"start," a run of evolution commences. If you click "stop," it stops.
Depending on whether you select "text output," "graph champion," or
"plot error" you will see a different kind of view of what is happening in
evolution. You can switch dynamically among these options WHILE A RUN
IS IN PROGRESS, and after it has ended. Allowing you to view things in
real-time.
-The "graph champion" option is particularly interesting. It will show you
the current champion genome in real-time, so you can see evolution
"complexifying" as it happens generation by generation. JNEAT will also place
the first winner (first genome to satisfy the fitness criteria) on the right
hand side, while new champions continue to be displayed. So you always know
what the winner looked like when it was first discovered. Keep in mind
that one of the inputs is a bias unit!
-The "plot Error" option is interesting as well, showing how fitness is changing
in real-time, and also how the number of species is changing. It also shows yo
u
when a winner is first found.
-The "text output" described the species in detail for each generation where
something new happened (a change in fitness or ranking of species).
-I suggest running a few times and flipping among all these views of evolution.
It can be quite educational. Then try changing parameters in the
"jneat parameter" panel, writing them to disk, and then running more
experiments. You can get a good idea how NEAT parameters effect evolution.
For example, what happens if we add links very often, or hardly at all?
How does it change the kinds of solutions and the fitnesses that we see?
-Finally, after completing at least one run, click on the "view graph" tab.
The interface here is pretty intuitive. You can load individual genomes,
(which will be in the "data folder, in case you get lost) and see how
they look and perform. They are labelled "xwinner_[generation #]_[org #]."
You can also load entire populations and flip through them (they are called
"generation[generation #]". Or you can load only the winners from a
generation (assuming there were any). The "print_every" parameter under
the "jneat parameter" tab determines how often generations are output.
They are also forced to output if they contain at least one winner.
You can also use this panel to show "link with width" graphs, which means
link widths are drawn proportionally to their connection strengths. A

right-hand panel is also used to show the network's actually performance

and fitness information. It can be very interesting to flip through an entire
population and look at the corresponding networks and their performances.
-See point #13 from the "UPDATE.txt" file to see how to run parity experiments
as well.
-Also note that JNEAT is provided with classic
NEAT is also meant to evolve controllers, so
non-classification experiments. Let me know
add anything interesting to the interface as

classification experiments, but

feel free to code your own
(kstanley@cs.utexas.edu) if you
this is an open source project.