Sapa User Guide
By Daniel Bryce

Sapa Planner by BinhMinh Do
Sapa Planner GUI by Daniel Bryce

 



Introduction

This document outlines the Graphical User Interface for the Sapa Planner. First, the input to the planner is described. Then, the output is described. Lastly the differences between the full application and the applet are explained.  This document does not serve as a description of the Sapa Planner <see http://rakaposhi.eas.asu.edu/sapa/ for planner details>.

 



Input

The input minimally consists of a domain file and problem file. Additional options can be selected to customize the planning. Once the input is specified, then the planner may be started.
Figure 1: Input Screen
- Domain File (PDDL)
    * Click 'choose domain' and use file chooser to pick a PDDL file

- Problem File
    * Click 'choose problem' and use file chooser to pick problem file


- Sapa Options

    Debug: Print detailed problems, domains, actions information
    Cost Propagation Option: 0-max; 1-sum (default); 2-Combo
    Don't compute the relaxed plan

    GoalCost Aggregation Option: 0-max; 1-sum(default); 2-Combo
    Lookahead option. Default: lookahead = -1
    No Auto: Do not use the *auto* running option (auto switch between option) -quality Try to improve the quality after found first solution (with different options) -ha Using     actions in the relaxed plan (auto = false)
    Using the set of negative effects of actions in the relaxed plan (auto=false)
    Do not use the resource adjustment technique
    Time cutoff in seconds (to stop the program)
    Frequency to check the time cutoff limit (e.g number of generated search nodes)
    Weight given to the h value (heuristic = g + hw*h)
    Output file for the solution.
    Start Planning - Click after at least the Domain and Problem files are selected.


Output

The output consists of a Chart area to graphically depict the plan, an Action list to denote the actions, an action detail area, and a plan detail area. Further, the output can be altered by selecting various options from the options menu, on the menu bar.


- Chart Area
Figure 2: Plan Detail and Pert Chart


* Default display is a Gantt chart with redundant ordering realtions removed, and all other relations present.
* Clicking on an action's cell will highlight the action red, the preceding actions green, and the post actions pink. Pre/Post actions are related to the selected action by at least one relation.


- Options
Figure 3: Display Options
* Show Causal Links - Default true.
* Show Resource Mutex - Default true.
* Show Predicate Mutex - Default true.
* Show Unit Actions - Default false. A Pert chart is similar to a Gantt chart, the only difference is that all action cells are the same unit size.

    Figure 4: Action Highlighting on Pert Chart
* Remove Redundant Orderings - Default true.


- Detail Area
    Key Commands: +/- to zoom , and q to quit.   
* Actions - list of actions and the index assigned to them by the planner. The index does not indicate ordering, just notation.
* Action Detail - If an action is highlighted in the Action list, or within the chart area, then the detailed information regarding the action is present in this tab.

Figure 5: Action Detail for a Gantt Chart
+ Index
+ Name
+ Start Time
+ End Time
+ Duration
+ Objects - Objects involved in Action
+ Pre Relations - Action name and relation type
+ Post Relations - Action name and relation type
 

* Plan Detail - Information about the Plan

            + Ground Atoms
            + Predicates
            + Functions
            + Parsing/Grounding Time
            + Search Time
            + Nodes Expanded
            + Nodes Generated
            + Makespan
            + Duration

 



Features:                                                 Applet        Application
Custom Input                                                             NO            YES   

Toggle Action Links                                                   NO            YES

Zoom                                                                        NO             YES


Dan Bryce, Arizona State University, Yochan Research Group

Last Updated: 7/4/02