• Request new password

breveWalker: the evolution of locomotion
now available for the iPhone

What is breve?

breve is a free, open-source software package which makes it easy to build 3D simulations of multi-agent systems and artificial life. Using Python, or using a simple scripting language called steve, you can define the behaviors of agents in a 3D world and observe how they interact. breve includes physical simulation and collision detection so you can simulate realistic creatures, and an OpenGL display engine so you can visualize your simulated worlds.

breve is available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows in the download section.

breve 2.7.2 fixes a crash during startup on Mac OS X, issues with the breveIDE for Windows and Linux, and a problem deleting objects in Python simulations.

breve 2.7 adds some major new features, including:

• Support for non-convex shapes.
• Support for importing shapes from 3DS.
• Improved support for writing simulations with Python.
• Improved graphics and rendering.

Write Your Own Simulations

breve simulations are written in the popular Python language, or in an easy-to-use language called steve, which is object-oriented and borrows many features from languages such as C, SmallTalk and Objective C. Regardless of which language is used, users without previous programming experience will find it easy to jump in. More information on both languages can be found in the documentation section.

Interface With Your Own Code

breve features an extensible plugin architecture which allows you to write your own plugins and interact with your own code. Writing plugins is simple and allows you to expand breve to work with existing projects. Plugins have been written in breve to generate MIDI music, download web pages, interact with a Lisp environment and interact with the "push" language. To develop your own plugins, you'll need to refer to the plugin documentation.

Feedback and Bug Reports

Please send feedback and bug reports to jk [at] spiderland.org. Bugs can also be reported on the breve discussion forums.

About the Author

breve was written by jon klein [mail].

Visualization

breve includes a rich OpenGL display engine that lets you explore these simulated worlds from any angle and using a variety of effects, like shadows and reflections. breve also lets you take snapshots and make movies of your simulations.

Links

• Hampshire College
• SoundSpectrum
• Noble Ape
• Chalmers University

	Technical Overview
	Learn more about breve. Download the paper presenting breve in PDF format [123K]. The paper here describes a somewhat ancient version of breve but is still a good introduction to the basic technical features of the software. Klein, J. 2002. breve: a 3D simulation environment for the simulation of decentralized systems and artificial life. Proceedings of Artificial Life VIII, the 8th International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems. The MIT Press.

breve development is supported in part by an NSF Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars (PI: Lee Spector), by NSF grant EIA-0216344, and by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, USAF, under agreement number F30502-00-2-0611.