Spoken text

In the previous unit 2 we learned all about the main elements and functions of the Editor and the Messages Window. Now we’re going to learn something more about the 3D View of GroIMP and we’re going to let the example model grow for the first time. We see some important elements of the 3D View besides the floppy disk symbol. These are the buttons for the central control of the simulation. To be more precise, if the model describes a plant, these buttons control the simulated growth. If you push these buttons, the model code which is located in the Editor will be executed. At this part of the module it isn’t reasonable to explain the meaning of the code, but it’s useful to mention that the Reset Button relies on the code segment from the init()-method. This button initiates the starting word or the Axiom. The Run Button invokes the run()-method and the RunRun Button invokes the run()-method iteratively until the Stop Button has been used. It’s important to be cautious with the use of the RunRun Button because the repeated invoking of the run()-method could crash the computer and could make a restart necessary.

Now, we’re executing the model and let it grow by pressing the Run Button 3 or 4 times. As you can see, a really primitive tree structure of an opposite growth is forming. It can be deleted by pressing the Reset Button. The ResetButton initiates the starting word again which is defined as a sphere in this model.