Planning Visualisation - User Guide

1. Overview

This document contains the User Guide for Planning Visualiser.

The Planning Visualiser is an open-source program which visualises solutions to Planning Problems. It is an executable Unity architecture in a browser.

1.1 Planning Problems

For information about Planning Problems, see http://planning.domains/

Our application uses one ‘Animation Profile’ per problem domain. An Animation Profile is a user-written PDDL file which tells the Visualiser how a Domain is to be visualised. See the developer docs for more information.

1.2 Scope

Planning Visualiser currently has Animation Profiles for four problem domains; Blocks, Grid, Towers of Hanoi, and Logistics. Other simple problem domains may be added by writing an Animation Profile (see section 3.2).

Planning visualiser can generate a solution using the solver on http://planning.domains/ . Alternatively, the user can provide their own solution from any solver, provided it conforms to the correct format.

2. Using the system

2.1 Visualise Built-in Domains

2.1.1 Select Files

From the home screen, two options are available:

Build visualisation from Problem

• Choose this option to generate a visualisation for a given problem
• Requires the following files: Domain PDDL, Problem PDDL, Animation Profile PPDL. Files for existing domains are located in the bitbucket repository under Test/Sample Files.
• A custom URL can be chosen to connect to any solver. The default is solver.planning.domains

Build visualisation from Solution VFG

• Choose this option to view the visualisation for an existing Visalisation file
• Reuqires the following file: Visualisation File
• This allows the user to generate a visualisation file once, and watch it multile times or share it with others

Once the correct files are uplodaded, the user will be taken to the Visualiser screen.

2.1.2 Visualise Solution

The visualisation page has several parts.

1. Steps Panel: Shows all the steps in the solution. Steps can be clicked to navigate the animation to that step.
2. Step Information Panel: shows detailed information for each step, including actions.
3. Animation Panel: displays the animation. Objects in the domain are darkened when they are part of a satisfied subgoal.
4. Control Panel: buttons to control the animation. These include changing the speed of the animation, Play/Pause, Step Forward/Backwards, Replay
5. Subgoal panel: Shows all subgoals (predicates which comprise the goal state). Subgoals change colour when they are satisfied. Clicking on the subgoal opens a dropdown list to all of the steps in which the subgoal is satisfied.
6. Header Bar: Contains Home button, Help button, and a button to download the Visualisation file. This downloaded visualisation file can be shared with others or re-watched.

2.2 Visualise a new Domain

This can be done, for many simple domains, with no modification to the system.

To add a new domain:

1. Write or obtain a Domain PDDL file for the problem domain. Many domains can be found at https://bitbucket.org/planning-researchers/classical-domains/src/208a850d2ff2a27068329ad578ad99af9ec7e5c5/classical/?at=master
2. Write an Animation Profile which corresponds to the domain file. For documentation on the Animation Profile Language, see the file ‘Animation Profile Language’
3. Follow the steps in 2.1 to view a visualisation with the new Animation Profile.

2.3 Video Record a Visualisation

A video recording of the visualisation can be created so that the final animation can be easily shared or re-reviewed independently of the system. The below recommendations are one way of recording the animation, however many other methods and tools exist to achieve this.

2.3.1 MacOS Users

To video record the visualisation, have the animation you wish to record on your screen, then complete the following steps:

1. Launch the pre-installed QuickTime Player application
2. Select “File” and choose “New Screen Recording”
3. To decide whether mouse clicks and sounds appear in your recording or not, click the small, white arrow and select the appropriate options from the drop-down menu.
4. When ready, click the red record button.
5. You will need to select what you want to record. To record the entire screen, click once anywhere. To record only a portion of it, click and drag a box and then click “Start Recording.”
6. When finished, navigate to the menu bar and click the stop recording button designated by the square symbol.
7. To save your recording, click “File” and then"Save", and choose an appropriate save location and name for the recording.

8. View and share file as you would with any other media file.

9. Instructions adapted from https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-record-your-computer-screen/

2.3.2 Windows Users

To video record the visualisation, have the animation you wish to record on your screen, then complete the following steps:

1. Press the Windows key and the letter G at the same time to open the Game Bar dialog (this will pop up on your screen).
2. Check the “Yes, this is a game” checkbox to load the Game Bar. This is the procedure regardless of what you are recording.
3. Click on the Start Recording button, or press Win + Alt + R to start screen recording.
4. Stop the recording by clicking on the red recording button on the pop-up.
5. The video can be accessed via your Videos folder, inside the Captures folder.

Instructions adapted from https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/how-to-video-screen-capture-windows-10

3. Extending the system

Planning Visualiser is modular and can be extended in multiple ways.

Many simple domains can be captured in the existing Animation Profile language. For more complex domains, modifications may need to be made to the application.

Detailed developer documentation is available at the project's repository (under /Docs) .

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Last update: July 10, 2019