A Parallel Cellular Tool for Interactive Modeling and Simulation

In this paper we describe CAMEL, an interactive parallel environment based on the cellular automata theory. CAMEL is a tool designed to support the development of high performance applications in science and engineering. It offers the computing power of a highly parallel computer, hiding the architecture issues from a user. The system can be used both as a tool to model dynamic complex phenomena and as a computational model for parallel processing. CAMEL implements a cellular automaton as a SPMD (Single Program Multiple Data) program and includes a load balancing strategy to equally distribute the computation load over the processing elements. By CAMEL a user might write programs to describe the actions of thousands of simple active objects, then observe the global complex evolution that arise from all the interactions. The paper presents a set of applications in significant areas such as lava flow, landslides, freeway traffic, image processing, and genetic algorithms where CAMEL has been successfully utilized to solve complex problems.