A model-view/controller approach to support visualization and online data analysis of Agent-based simulations

Agent-based Modeling is playing a key role in an increasing number of approaches addressing modeling complex systems. Historically, such models were focused on describing the system modelled dynamics but not the interaction or visualization of the model itself. The new requirements for high-level realistic visualization and online analysis tools of ABM simulations raise key issues that are yet unsolved: how to visualize interaction between entities and more generally abstracting the key information from the system dynamics. Instead of ad-hoc existing approaches that require reification in the model, we propose an approach dedicated to visualize and discover emerging dynamics from the model. In this approach, the execution of the simulation and its representation is separated and building a visualization is like building a visualization model on top of the reference model. The techniques presented here have been implemented in an Agent-based simulation platform, Gama, and illustrate the new perspective on visualization in Agent-based Modeling.