| The surge of software agents has spurred interest in harnessing this technology with intelligent behavior. The empowerment of software agents attempts to relieve us of our mundane, laborious and often repetitive tasks. The aim of software agents is to offer intelligent automated assistance or guidance to users (Norman, 1994), machines, other software, or other software agents (Guha and Lenat, 1994), whenever requested and wherever employed.; Intelligent Multi-Agent Based Virtual Gauges (IMAGES) is a software tool which provides a highly modular, customizable and easy to integrate solution for automating and enhancing the instrumentation of simulation output generation. The IMAGES system design is based on a software agent architecture to promote ease of use without compromising functionality. The integration of software agent technology relieves the user from having to manage every aspect of the back-end interface of a simulation environment. Furthermore, by decoupling the client application (i.e. the simulation or application program), from its back end interface, we achieve a virtual integration that enhances modularity, facilitates maintenance and enables distributed observation and monitoring. Both of these characteristics, the software agent based architecture and its virtual observation and monitoring capabilities, define the goals of IMAGES.; Being native to the Microsoft Windows NT operating system, IMAGES takes advantage of the powerful advanced OLE communication facilities within the context of a true multi-tasking, multi-threaded, and graphical based operating system. Designed and implemented with object-oriented concepts from inception to completion, within the Microsoft Visual C++ development platform, the development and maintenance effort is minimized, thus facilitating future enhancements. Built on the base of the Windows 32-bit API, an industry standard for software development targeted at Microsoft Windows operating systems, future compatibility is assured. IMAGES represents a viable option for integrating state-of-the-art software instrumentation into existing simulation systems. |
