Frequently Answered Questions

General

For now, the software is only available in English.

Dinamica EGO is a freeware software for non-commercial use. Go to the Download section of this website and get it. It includes everything you need to get it started (guidebook and examples files).

FIXME

  1. Open the model.
  2. Before you run it, click on Edit menu, then “Log Level” and set is as “Debug”
  3. Run the model.
  4. As soon as Dinamica EGO crashes and close go to the folder where it was installed and make a copy of these two files: hs_err_pidXXXX.log (XXXX is a number) 1) and debug.txt.
  5. Compact these two files in a zip file and send it to dinamica@csr.ufmg.br so we can try to find out what's causing Dinamica EGO to crash.

It’s probably caused by an old Dinamica EGO version. Please update Dinamica by downloading the latest version (1.6.2). It will likely solve your problem.

It means that the use of this operator is no longer recommended as it will be eliminated in the future. Please do not use it or if used, replace this operator in existing models with new ones that perform the same function.

FIXME The log level available in Dinamica EGO are as follows:

Levels marked bold are available on the “Edit” → “Log Level” menu
Level Name Description
0 Unconditional
1 Error Displays any error occurred and all the information from the levels below this.
2 Warning Displays warnings regarding any potential problem that may occur and all the information from the levels below this.
3 Result Displays the result only.
4 Info Displays progress information and all the informations from the levels below this. This is the standard log level.
5 Info 2
6 Debug Displays debug information and all the informations from the levels below this.
7 Debug 2
8 Trace

In order to change the log level go to menu “Edit”, then Log Level and choose which one you want.

Documentation

Dinamica's guidebook is installed as a pdf file named Dinamica_EGO_guidebook.pdf inside the folder “Dataset”.

The default directory should be:

Windows Version Folder
Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\My Documents\Dinamica EGO\Dataset
Windows Vista / 7 C:\Users\<User>\Documents\Dinamica EGO\Dataset

It is worth noting that the name convention used by the OS to represent these folder name may be different in a localized Windows version.

If you still can't find it on these default locations it probably means that you have not installed the guidebook files while installing the software. We suggest you to reinstall Dinamica EGO making sure that the option to install the guidebook files is checked.

Installation

FIXME It might be possible that because of different versions of Dinamica and Java Platform previously installed the Windows is not sure where to find the correct files to run the system. This is what you should try:

  1. Uninstall any previous version of Java (Java Runtime) present in your machine.
  2. Uninstall Dinamica EGO.
  3. Completely remove the folder where Dinamica EGO was first installed. Make sure you have backed up any model you would have inside that folder.
  4. Search for any of the files below in your computer. In case you find any of these, they should be removed.
    • Dinamica.dll
    • ImagePlugin.dll
    • CalibrationPlugin.dll
    • RegionPlugin.dll
    • ValidationPlugin.dll
    • JavaBinding.dll
    • Base.dll
    • SimulationPlugin.dll,
  5. Install Dinamica EGO again.

Edit the file Dinamica.vmoptions located in the Dinamica EGO installation folder using a raw text editor (like notepad) and change the equivalent lines below back to their default values:

-Xss1m
-Xms64m
-Xmx256m

These values represent the maximum amount of memory available to Dinamica Graphical Interface (in megabytes). If Dinamica still not launching, lower the -Xmx value and try again. Only lower the value just far enough to allow Dinamica to launch, as the lower this value is, the less memory it is allowed to use. Lowering this value will not impact model execution performance but the Graphical Interface may become useless.

Calibration

There isn't any mechanism for automatic calibrating those values in Dinamica EGO. In case you don't want to use trial and error we recommend using a different software like Fragstats to calculate the parameters.

Technically it's not needed, although it's important for the results to be consistent. It's only required the two images have the same number of rows and columns. Currently, information regarding projection and cell dimension is neither used nor validated by the DetermineTransitionMatrix operator.

If the reason for doing this is to limit memory usage, you don't have to worry with that any more. The new version of Dinamica EGO can handle memory issued a lot better than it used to.

Performance

On Windows 64 (Vista 64 and 7 64), Dinamica EGO is limited by the amount of memory that you have in your system.

On Windows 32 Bits (XP, Vista 32 and 7 32), Dinamica EGO is limited by Windows Operating System memory policies (~2 Gigabytes per process), no matter how much memory you have installed in your system. However, Dinamica is a “LargeAddressAware” application, so it is possible to increase the amount of memory used in a 32 bit arquiteture to ~3 Gigabytes following the instructions available at http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/LargeAddressAware.html. Beware that changing the Windows memory partition policy can have some unpredicted consequences.

In order to otimized memory usage, it is recomended to run large models using the Dinamica Console Launcher (it can be found in the Windows Start | Dinamica EGO | Tools sub-menu).

Usage

In the folder where the model is been executed, there is a complete log file written by the Console Launcher with the model name. It allows the Console to run several models at the same folder one after another without discarding the previous output logs.

Clicking on the “Show More” on the Console Launcher Output panel, it is possible to see a list of output log of models that have completed the execution and are available for inspection.

Models

CARLUC algorithm is described in the following articles: Hirsch, A.I., Little, W.S., Houghton, R.A., Scott, N.A., and White, J.D. 2004. The net carbon flux due to deforestation and forest re-growth in the Brazilian Amazon: analysis using a process-based model. Global Change Biology, 10, 908-924.

1) There may be more than one file with that name inside the installation folder. Make sure you get the most recent one