Difference between revisions of "NetAnim 3.105"

Revision as of 03:30, 7 February 2014

THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The current release version is 3.105 and will be bundled along with ns-3.20. NetAnim 3.105 is compatible with ns-3-dev. Contributors:

• John Abraham
• Evegeny Kalishenko (Battery Visualization)
• Emanuel Eichhammer (QCustomplot.com: Chart Visualization)

Summary of features

• Animate packets over wired-links and wireless-links (Limited support for LTE traces)
• Packet timeline with regex filter on packet meta-data.
• Node position statistics with node trajectory plotting(path of a mobile node).
• Print brief packet-meta data on packets
• Use custom icons for nodes
• Parse flow-monitor XML files and display statistics for each flow.
• Show IP and MAC information, including peer IP and MAC for point-to-point links.
• Display double or uint32 valued counters vs time for multiple nodes in a chart or a table.
• Step through a simulation one event at a time and pause the simulation at a given time
• Print the routing table at nodes at various points in time

Packet Statistics

Node Trajectory

Dumbbell

Wifi Beacon

TCP flags

ICMP Unreachable

Node Properties

Battery Visualization

Custom Background

Routing Tables

Congestion Window

Flow monitor output parsing

Packet Timeline

IPv4 Address

MAC Address

Color,Link Description

Hidden node

.

Prerequisites

1. mercurial
2. QT4 development packages (recommended version 4.7)

Debian/Ubuntu Linux distribution:

1. apt-get install mercurial
2. apt-get install qt4-dev-tools

Red Hat/Fedora based distribution:

1. yum install mercurial
2. yum install qt4
3. yum install qt4-devel

Mac/OSX

1. mercurial
2. Qt4 : Install Qt4 (including Qt Creator if possible) from http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/

Windows

1. mercurial
2. Qt Creator
3. Microsoft Visual C++ (Visual Studio 2010 and over http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/visual-studio-express-products) or MinGw compiler

Downloading NetAnim

• NetAnim 3.0:

hg clone http://code.nsnam.org/jabraham3/netanim-3.105

Building and Starting NetAnim

NetAnim uses a QT4 build tool called qmake. Only qmake version 4.7 is supported Please read the #Prerequisites before proceeding

cd netanim
make clean
qmake NetAnim.pro  (For MAC Users: qmake -spec macx-g++ NetAnim.pro)
make

Note: qmake could be "qmake-qt4" in some systems

This should create an executable named "NetAnim" in the same directory. To start the application just type "./NetAnim"

For windows users:

• In the netanim repository you cloned in step: #Downloading NetAnim , there will be a file named "NetAnim.pro". Double-click it. This should open QtCreator.
• In QtCreator to go "Projects" -->"Build settings"-->Tool chain. Here a tool chain should be displayed such as MSVisual C++ compiler or MinGw etc. If not click on "Manage" and point to the local of the tool chain. See http://doc.qt.digia.com/qtcreator-2.4/creator-tool-chains.html
• In QtCreator -->Click "Build All"-->Run, it should open the NetAnim executable.

Using NetAnim

Using NetAnim is a two-step process.

Step 1: Generate the animation XML trace file during simulation using "ns3::AnimationInterface" in the ns-3 code base

Step 2: Load the XML trace file generated in Step 1 with the offline animator (NetAnim).

Using ns3::AnimationInterface to generate Animation trace files

The NetAnim application requires a custom trace file for animation. This trace file is created by AnimationInterface in ns-3.

1. Model is at: src/netanim/model
2. Examples are at src/netanim/examples

Mandatory and optional set of steps

Here is the recommended set of steps for generating XML Animation traces.They must be applied just before the "Simulation::Run" statement.

NOTE: A node must have an associated mobility model in-order to be displayed on the animation. This applies for both stationary and mobile nodes (See notes below)

Mandatory

 0. Ensure that your wscript includes the "netanim" module. Example as in: src/netanim/examples/wscript. 
 1. Also include the header [#include "ns3/netanim-module.h"] in your test program
 2. Add the statement "AnimationInterface anim ("animation.xml");" before Simulator::Run()

Optional

 3. anim.SetMobilityPollInterval (Seconds (1));[OPTIONAL]
 4. anim.SetConstantPosition (Ptr< Node > n, double x, double y); [OPTIONAL]
 5. anim.EnablePacketMetadata (true); [OPTIONAL]  available only on ns-3-dev and from ns-3.14. Used to show packet meta data on the packet statistics and packet animation

Try to keep the above as close as possible to the "Simulator::Run()" statement

Running an Example File to generate XML trace file

The netanim example files are located under "src/netanim/examples"

 ./waf --run "dumbbell-animation --nLeftLeaf=5 --nRightLeaf=5 --animFile=dumbbell.xml"
 ./waf --run "grid-animation --xSize=5 --ySize=5 --animFile=grid.xml"

Setting the location of nodes

NetAnim requires a location to be assigned to each Node, in-order to be shown on the animation.

For stationary nodes:

• You should assign the ConstantPositionMobilityModel. Constant Position is a kind of mobility.

Here is an example:

 1. Ptr<Node> n = nodecontainer.Get (1);
 2. AnimationInterface anim ("anim.xml");
 2. anim.SetConstantPosition (n, 100, 200);

where

 1. Get a Ptr to Node from the node container
 2. Instantiate an object of type AnimationInterface
 3. Set a node pointed to by "n" to the x-coordinate of 100 and y-coordinate of 200

For mobile nodes

• You should assign any suitable Mobility model.

The examples for these are found in places such as src/mobility/examples or examples/routing/manet-routing-compare.cc etc

The ns3::AnimationInterface class is responsible for the creation of the xml trace files. Currently, in basic-mode, AnimationInterface records the position of the nodes at every periodic interval. This interval is 200 ms by default. This will become more efficient in future releases. This has the potential to cause a. Slowness in simulation b. Large XML trace files

Some ways to get around this is to identify if your topology has

1. only stationary nodes and hence no mobility
2. or slow-moving nodes

If the above is the case you should use AnimationInterface::SetMobilityPollInterval to set the poll interval to a high value.

Using the XML trace with NetAnim

Run NetAnim and click the file-open button on the top-left hand corner and select the XML trace file that was discussed in the previous sections

• Here is a youtube video demonstrating how to load the XML file click here
• Here is a youtube video demonstrating Animation for Wired transmission click here
• Here is a youtube video demonstrating Animation for Wireless transmission click here
• Here is a youtube video demonstrating Animation for Node trajectory click here

The update rate slider

• Update rate slider:

This slider controls the interval between updating animation. If it is low, more packets will be animated, but the simulation progress will be slow

If it is high, some packets may get skipped, although the simulation may progress faster. 

NetAnim uses the first/last bit transmit and receive time to show animations accurately. So if you can pick up your physical cable (assume it is transparent) and can see packets flowing then you can see it with NetAnim as well. But often, the low application data-rate or high bandwidth/low propagation delay links may make it impossible to see packets flowing because they travel really fast. In such situations (especially wireless and CSMA) use the "update rate interval" slider to slow down the animation. Also toggle the precision button, to downgrade the precision for CSMA links

F.A.Q

• I can see the nodes and topology but cannot see packets animated

>> NetAnim uses the first/last bit transmit and receive time to show animations accurately. So if you can pick up your physical cable (assume it is transparent) and can see packets flowing then you can see it with NetAnim as well. But often, the low application data-rate or high bandwidth/low propagation delay links may make it impossible to see packets flowing because they travel really fast. In such situations (especially wireless and CSMA) use the "update rate interval" slider to slow down the animation. Also toggle the precision button, to downgrade the precision for CSMA links

• I get /

home/wimax/ns-allinone-3.12.1/ns-3.12.1/build/../examples/routing/manet-routing-compare.cc:366: undefined reference to `ns3::AnimationInterface::AnimationInterface(std::basic_string<char,   std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, bool)'
/home/wimax/ns-allinone-3.12.1/ns-3.12.1/build/../examples/routing/manet-routing-compare.cc:366: undefined reference to `ns3::AnimationInterface::~AnimationInterface()'
/home/wimax/ns-allinone-3.12.1/ns-3.12.1/build/../examples/routing/manet-routing-compare.cc:371: undefined reference to `ns3::AnimationInterface::~AnimationInterface()'
/home/wimax/ns-allinone-3.12.1/ns-3.12.1/build/../examples/routing/manet-routing-compare.cc:371: undefined reference to `ns3::AnimationInterface::~AnimationInterface()'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
Waf: Leaving directory `/home/wimax/ns-allinone-3.12.1/ns-3.12.1/build'
Build failed:  -> task failed (err #1): 
   {task: cxx_link manet-routing-compare_9.o -> manet-routing-compare}

>> Add 'netanim' to your wscript