First steps

Yade can be started from either a terminal window or just by clicking on the icon. Currently it is more useful to run it from a terminal because:

• you can cd into a directory of your choice (quite often it's yade's bin/ directory), so that default ../data directory exists. Next version should allow to configure paths
• you can see all messages going to stderr or stdout

File Generator

When yade starts, click "Preprocessor->File Generator". Filegenerators are used to generate an input file for yade to simulate something. You can try using some of the existing ones before you try writing a new filegenerator. You will see a following dialog box:

key/button result Output file name By default it is ../data/scene.xml. If you didn't downloaded yade examples this directory might not exist, you can create it, or use another one. Output library name save format of the file. The BINFormatManager (binary format) is faster to load and save! Generator name is the name of the class used to generate this file. You can pick anything from the list, and see what it generates. If you happen to write a new generator plugin, and a path to this plugin was added in preferences, then it will automatically appear in this drop down list. Open automatically If set, the generated file will be automatically opened. In fact you can generate the .xml file using some other tools completely not related to yade. And afterwards open them in yade. ... Parameters parameters of the plugin used to generate a file. Each plugin has its own different parameters, so explaining them here is too much. Save save the configuration of this FileGenerator, to restore it later Load load the configuration of this FileGenerator Generate a generated output file will be saved. Stop If generation takes long time, and you want to stop it, use this button.

Examples

Some of the filegenerators mentioned above need an input file which can be found in yade-examples. Currently we have:

• 2 examples for FEM
• 1 example for SDEC Impact test

Other filegenerators work without need for any input file. They generate examples just by parameters given to them. In the future yade-examples will contain more.

Put those examples in mentioned above somewhere/data/ directory, so that filegenerators will find them.

To have a glance on what FileGenerators are available, and what they do, please visit the screenshots and videos section.

First simulation

Once you have succesfully generated an input file for the simulation (called ../scene.xml by default), you can load and run it. Click "File->New Simulation", and you will see a Simulation Controller window. Inside it click Load and choose scene.xml. You should see something like this:

You can manipulate the qglviewer graphical window by dragging and scrolling with the mouse. To run the simulation click the button (play). Eventually you will see something like this:

From now on you can start exploring yade yourself, and have a look at usage details for more info.