[gecode-users] newbie questions on a possible Gecode use case

[Christian Schulte]

Dear Rich,

Yes that sounds like a good application domain for constraint programming in
general and Gecode in particular.

One idea might be to first try to get a feel for how to model your problem.
There you might want to not use Gecode directly but something that is more
accessible, for example MiniZinc (www.minizinc.org) as a modeling language.
After you have convinced yourself how to model your problem I would switch
to Gecode and think about how to integrate it into your product/environment.

Cheers
Christian

--
Christian Schulte, Professor of Computer Science, KTH,
www.ict.kth.se/~cschulte/


-----Original Message-----
From: users-bounces at gecode.org [mailto:users-bounces at gecode.org] On Behalf
Of Rich Morin
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2014 6:32 PM
To: users at gecode.org
Subject: [gecode-users] newbie questions on a possible Gecode use case

I'm working with a modeling approach (Inductive Process Modeling) that
composes sets of "model structures" from specifications of "entities"
and "processes".  Some process combinations don't make sense, so we use sets
of simple constraints in generating candidate model structures, eg:

  ALWAYS-TOGETHER
  These processes must always be used together.

  ATMOST-ONE
  At most one of these processes may be used.

  EXACTLY-ONE
  Exactly one of these processes must be used.

  FORBIDDEN
  This process must not be used.

  NECESSARY
  All of these processes must be used.

Because the number of combinations could be very large, we generate
pseudo-random subsets (of a specified size).  These are evaluated (eg,
fitting parameters to match observed data) and the best results are
presented to the user for inspection.


Currently, these combinations are being produced by means of complex Lisp
code that performs boolean satisfiability logic.  I'm wondering whether this
task (along with possible follow-on extensions involving feedback from the
evaluation task) might be a good use case for Gecode.
(If this let me replace the code with a small set of constraints, I'd be a
really happy camper. :-)

I'm a complete newbie at Gecode, so I'm hoping for caveats, comments,
suggestions, etc.  In addition, if any Gecoders out there are available for
small consulting projects, I'd like to hear from them (off-list!).

-r
 
 -- 
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm           Rich Morin           rdm at cfcl.com
http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume    San Bruno, CA, USA   +1 650-873-7841

Software system design, development, and documentation



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