SCONE Basics

• Startup SCONE by clicking on the SCONE icon on your desktop or start menu
• Click on File → Open…, navigate to Tutorials and open Tutorial 1 - Introduction.scone

You've just opened a so-called SCONE Scenario, which shows up as the text in the center of the screen:

A SCONE scenario contains all information needed for a predictive simulation, including a model, controller, objective, and optimization strategy. The .scenario format is based on the ZML format specification.

On the left are the Optimization Results, which are initially empty. On the right is the Viewer, which will show a 3D rendering of the simulation results. More on this later – first, let's run an optimization!

• Go to Scenario and click Optimize Scenario

This will start the optimization in the background. In the lower-left, you will see a progress graph appear, which shows the current result of the optimization. In this case, we're optimizing a standing high jump, so the higher the value, the better the performance. As you can see, the performance is gradually improving, but it will take a while before an optimum is reached. Predictive simulations require patience!

Meanwhile, you will also see a new entry appear in the Optimization Results section on the left. If you open the folder, you will see all the results that have been computed so far, along with the fitness value.

• Double-click on any entry in the folder inside Optimization Results

The simulation will now re-run for that specific set of parameters, and the result can be viewed in the Viewer panel on the right. Once the simulation is done, you can analyze the motion using the playback controls “Viewer” tab (see below). Initially, the results won't be very impressive, but they'll get better as the optimization progresses. At any time, you can double-click any new entry in the Optimization Results.

At any time, it is possible to abort an optimization; either through the menu or by pressing the 'x' in the top right corner of the progress window. Optimizations will also terminate when specific conditions are met.

After you click on a result in the Optimization Results browser, the simulation will be repeated and shown in the 3D viewer.

You can use the slider to jump to any section, and playback in slow-motion using the box on the right. You can orbit, pan and zoom in the viewer window using the left, middle and right mouse button.

For detailed analysis of the results, there is the analysis window.

• Click on Window → Analysis to activate the analysis window

Here you can graph any of the available channels during the simulation. To quickly find a specific channel, use the Filter input box (case sensitive!). Use the right mouse button for panning, and the mouse wheel for zooming.

That's the basics of SCONE! In the next tutorial, we will look closer to what's happening inside the scenario file, and how you can customize your optimization.