ISU Tile Assembly Simulator Overview


The ISU Tile Assembly Simulator (TAS) is a graphical simulator and editor for working with tile assembly systems within the Tile Assembly Model.   It allows users to design new systems or load existing systems, and to simulate assemblies produced by them.   It was written by Matt Patitz, along with contributions by Tyler Fochtman and Michael Sherman, and is made freely available on self-assembly.net (http://self-assembly.net) to anyone interested in using it.   It comes with no warranties or guarantees.  Use at your own risk.

Below is an explanation of the structure of ISU TAS. This help documentation is quite incomplete, but for additional assistance please see the tutorials on self-assembly.net (http://self-assembly.net/wiki/index.php?title=ISU_TAS_Tutorials). If you are more interested in just getting up and running quickly with one of the included samples, you can skip to the Getting Started section.



ISU TAS Structure

ISU TAS consists of two main components: the tile assembly simulator (in the 'ISU TAS Simulation Window') and the tile set editor (in the 'ISU TAS Tileset Editor' window).

Tile Assembly Simulator

The ISU TAS Simulation Window contains the full functionality for simulating the growth of a TAM tile assembly.  It maintains internal representations of all of the parts of a tile assembly system. By default the temperature value is set at 2 (although it can be changed).  The simulation window keeps track of the current assembly along with the entire step-by-step history of its growth from the initial seed assembly. It also keeps its own representation of the current tile set which is independent of the tile set in the editor. See here to learn how to update the simulator's tile set.

To begin a simulation, a seed assembly can be loaded or manually created.

Tile Set Editor

The ISU TAS Tileset Editor window allows for the full editing of TAM tile sets.   The editor maintains its own tile set which is independent of the tile set in the simulator.   See here to learn how to update the simulator's tile set.