Component-based Simulation Environments

In this paper we investigate possible patterns that component interactions can take in a component-based simulation environment by taking the communication between a behaviour simulator and an an-imator as a case study. The interaction between a functional simulator of an engineering product and a visualisation system that is used to animate the geometric model corresponding to that product, to generate a functioning virtual prototype is discussed. Our proposal is that, VRML 2.0 internal execution model can be used to implement the behaviours of geometric entities whereas the simulator is responsible for controlling the animation. Rather than using standard VRML browsers, the visualisation system is deened as a plugguble component ooering its services via a high level, easy-to-use interface in the form of a set of initialisation, synchronisation and motion-generation functions.