Creating traffic simulator with VB .NET

[Wouter van Teijlingen]

Dear Readers,

This is my first post to this group. I was pointed to this group in a
other vb group, so i have better luck here!

For my learning curve of VB .NET i want to make a traffic simulation
program. Before i start programming, i need to know if there even is a
possibility to make a algorithm in VB .NET that is able to let traffic
drive and making the lights go green, orange or red.

Thanks in advance,

Wouter van Teijlingen

[Andy O'Neill]

"Wouter van Teijlingen" <wo*****@nedlin ux.nl> wrote in message
news:ct******** **@reader08.wxs .nl...

Cor Ligthert wrote:

Wouter,

That was what I understood, however there should be an interface between
your train and your computer in my opinion.

Or is it completly without any fysical beside the computer and is it
simulating.

I want to make the program without any fysical connection. It's all
simulated on the computer. The train is simulated on the computer, the
trafficlights and battle tree's. Just everything. I wondered if this was
possible to make in VB .NET.

-- Wouter van Teijlingen

You can do it, but I think it'd be dead hard to do anything beyond trivial.
Not just in vb.net, in any language.

One road and one car would be kind of easy.
Say.
The car just goes left to right until it comes to the lights... then
reappears on the left of the picture.
The lights turn from red to amber to green....
The car stops if < so-many-pixels from the lights if they're red.
You can hard code all the tricky bits.
You need a car.jpg a background.jpg and three lights.jpg.
Or maybe one lights.jpg and you draw a green/red/amber bit on it.

More cars and more roads is hurting my head just thinking about it.

You're tallking the sort of programming that games designers do.
You need to think about collision detection between the cars.
How do the cars "know" which road they're on and where it goes.
How do they work out that there are lights ahead.
The algorithm woukd be really tricky.
I'm not exactly sure how games designers do this.
I think there's like a mathematical model they use controls the movement and
where stuff is and hence collision detection.
This model is then used by the graphics bits.
So the lights being green is (say) a Light_Colour property of that light
object the buncha-cars-on-that-road will check to see if they move. It's
also one of the properties the stuff does the graphics will check as it
decides which of three lights.jpg to stick in the picture.
You heave inheritance to make vehicles then cars/trucks inherit from that.

Simulation is hard though.
I would imagine the vast majority of us on this ng do business programming.
--
Regards,
Andy O'Neill

[Wouter van Teijlingen]

Cor Ligthert wrote:

Wouter,

I would not know now why not.

Okay, thanks.
Now i can take a time to start thinking about the how the program should
be made.

-- Wouter van Teijlingen

[Wouter van Teijlingen]

Cor Ligthert wrote:

Wouter,

I would not know now why not.

Okay, thanks.
Now i can take a time to start thinking about the how the program should
be made.

-- Wouter van Teijlingen

[Chris Dunaway]

Andy O'Neill wrote:

You can do it, but I think it'd be dead hard to do anything beyond trivial.

I agree that the program he is describing will not be simple, VB.Net is
perfectly capable of doing complex programs.
One road and one car would be kind of easy.
Say.
The car just goes left to right until it comes to the lights... then
reappears on the left of the picture.
The lights turn from red to amber to green....
The car stops if < so-many-pixels from the lights if they're red.
You can hard code all the tricky bits.
You need a car.jpg a background.jpg and three lights.jpg.
Or maybe one lights.jpg and you draw a green/red/amber bit on it.

More cars and more roads is hurting my head just thinking about it.

You're tallking the sort of programming that games designers do.
You need to think about collision detection between the cars.
The cars behavior should not depend at all on the visual representation
on the screen. The car, the traffic light, the road, and all the other
items in the game would be defined as classes with separate properties.
The display on the screen would simply reflect the current state of
all the objects. Look up the Model - View - Controller design pattern.

How do the cars "know" which road they're on and where it goes.
How do they work out that there are lights ahead.
I'd imagine the network of roadways would be modelled with some sort of
graph structure. The cars would not have to know what is ahead, they
would just check to see if there is a light at their current location
and what it's state is (red, yellow, or green). Pick up a college
textbook on data structures. There is a lot of computer science theory
on graphs, trees, etc. that would be useful.
The algorithm woukd be really tricky.
I'm not exactly sure how games designers do this.
I think there's like a mathematical model they use controls the movement and where stuff is and hence collision detection.
This model is then used by the graphics bits.
The algorithm would certainly be challenging, but each object could be
written to be independent. The car for example would have properties
such as speed, direction, etc. When the simulation is started, the car
would operate pretty much independent of the other vehicles. If two
cars happened to enter the same location, that would constitue a
collision.

I'm not clear if the original poster is trying to create some sort of
game (like Sim City) or a traffic simulator to simulate the flow of
traffic.

Simulation is hard though.
I would imagine the vast majority of us on this ng do business

programming.

It's definitely an app that would require careful design, but VB.Net is
more than capable of handling it, IMHO.

Cheers,

Chris

[Chris Dunaway]

Andy O'Neill wrote:

You can do it, but I think it'd be dead hard to do anything beyond trivial.

I agree that the program he is describing will not be simple, VB.Net is
perfectly capable of doing complex programs.
One road and one car would be kind of easy.
Say.
The car just goes left to right until it comes to the lights... then
reappears on the left of the picture.
The lights turn from red to amber to green....
The car stops if < so-many-pixels from the lights if they're red.
You can hard code all the tricky bits.
You need a car.jpg a background.jpg and three lights.jpg.
Or maybe one lights.jpg and you draw a green/red/amber bit on it.

More cars and more roads is hurting my head just thinking about it.

You're tallking the sort of programming that games designers do.
You need to think about collision detection between the cars.
The cars behavior should not depend at all on the visual representation
on the screen. The car, the traffic light, the road, and all the other
items in the game would be defined as classes with separate properties.
The display on the screen would simply reflect the current state of
all the objects. Look up the Model - View - Controller design pattern.

How do the cars "know" which road they're on and where it goes.
How do they work out that there are lights ahead.
I'd imagine the network of roadways would be modelled with some sort of
graph structure. The cars would not have to know what is ahead, they
would just check to see if there is a light at their current location
and what it's state is (red, yellow, or green). Pick up a college
textbook on data structures. There is a lot of computer science theory
on graphs, trees, etc. that would be useful.
The algorithm woukd be really tricky.
I'm not exactly sure how games designers do this.
I think there's like a mathematical model they use controls the movement and where stuff is and hence collision detection.
This model is then used by the graphics bits.
The algorithm would certainly be challenging, but each object could be
written to be independent. The car for example would have properties
such as speed, direction, etc. When the simulation is started, the car
would operate pretty much independent of the other vehicles. If two
cars happened to enter the same location, that would constitue a
collision.

I'm not clear if the original poster is trying to create some sort of
game (like Sim City) or a traffic simulator to simulate the flow of
traffic.

Simulation is hard though.
I would imagine the vast majority of us on this ng do business

programming.

It's definitely an app that would require careful design, but VB.Net is
more than capable of handling it, IMHO.

Cheers,

Chris

[Wouter van Teijlingen]

Chris Dunaway wrote:

....usefull information....

It's definitely an app that would require careful design, but VB.Net is
more than capable of handling it, IMHO.

Yes! Thanks for this very informative reaction. I have programming
experience in C++ so working with classes should not be a typical pain
in the ass :-).

I'm now busy with learning some specific syntax of vb (.net) and i
already like it. I like challenges so this will be great.

Thanks for the reactions,

-- Wouter van Teijlingen

[Wouter van Teijlingen]

Chris Dunaway wrote:

....usefull information....

It's definitely an app that would require careful design, but VB.Net is
more than capable of handling it, IMHO.

Yes! Thanks for this very informative reaction. I have programming
experience in C++ so working with classes should not be a typical pain
in the ass :-).

I'm now busy with learning some specific syntax of vb (.net) and i
already like it. I like challenges so this will be great.

Thanks for the reactions,

-- Wouter van Teijlingen