Ptolemy II 2.0.1 Release

Ptolemy II Planet
Note:
This is not the most recent version of Ptolemy II. The most recent version can be found at http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/ptolemyII/ptIIlatest/.

Ptolemy II 2.0.1 is the first major release to include Modal Models and a prototype code generator. Ptolemy II 2.0.1 is the second major release to include Vergil, a graphical user interface supporting block diagram editing of Ptolemy II models. It also includes a set of mature and experimental domains, and a more comprehensive actor library than previous releases.

Ptolemy II 2.0.1 includes the following features that were not present in Ptolemy II 2.0-beta:

HyVisual is a Continuous Time and Finite State Machine only version of Ptolemy II. See the HyVisual 2.2 page for details.

Quick Start Instructions

Ptolemy II is available in several formats:

Applets
You can browse Ptolemy II and run demonstration applets without downloading the distribution by accessing the web copy.
The web copy is merely a set of web pages that were created when we untar'd the distribution on the Ptolemy web site.
To access Ptolemy II via the applets, you can either go directly to the web copy, or go to the Ptolemy II 2.0.1 Applets page for more information.
Web Start
Web Start is a tool from Sun that makes installation and updates particularly simple.
The Web Start installation works best with Windows, but has also been tried under Solaris, Linux and Mac OSX (!).
The Web Start installation does not include source, but behaves almost exactly like a standalone installation: you can save models locally, and you need not be connected to the net after the initial installation.
Note that the Applet web copy and the Web Start installations are different, the web copy is a set of web pages where some of the pages contain applets, and Web Start is a set of jar files that get downloaded to your machine so that you can run Ptolemy II at a later time, even if you are not connected to the network. For details, see the Installation Summary
To download using Web Start, see the Ptolemy II 2.0.1 Web Start page.
Windows Installer
To download a Windows Installer, see the Ptolemy II 2.0.1 Windows Installer page.
Source
You can download either precompiled sources or the smaller source only distribution and install Ptolemy II, start vergil from the command line and follow the quick tour.
The source distribution has been compiled and run under Windows, Solaris and Linux.
If you intend to develop your own actors in Java, then you should download the source distribution.
To download source, see the Ptolemy II 2.0.1 Source Download page and then follow the installation instructions.

Summary

The table below is a summary that compares and contrasts the various installers.
Download Format Requirement Platform Size Create your own models? Require net connection at runtime? Custom Actor creation? Code generator?
Applets Java 1.3 plugin Windows, Linux, MacOS X, Solaris Initially ~2Mb No Yes No No
Web Start Java Web Start Windows, Linux, MacOS X, Solaris ~11Mb Yes Not required, but can get updates if connected No Yes
Windows Installer InstallAnywhere, untested on other platforms Windows only ?Mb Yes No No Yes
Source Download JDK1.3, Devel. tools like make Windows, Linux, MacOS X, Solaris 13Mb-33Mb Yes No Yes Yes

Places to go

  • The "Using Vergil" chapter from the Ptolemy II Design Document
  • Limitations