goat 1.0 - an optimization solver component

We are happy to announce the first public release of goat - a fast and deterministic optimization solver component.

goat is a gradient-free solver that perfectly complements the evolutionary (and to some extent randomized) approach of David Rutten's galapagos. Get the best of both worlds: goat is a simple drop-in replacement for galapagos.

goat 1.0 is available for download from over here.

For further information, see goat's homepage and its documentation.

We will post some example case studies in the upcoming days. Please give us feedback to improve this first version to a mature state!

enjoy, simon

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Simon Flöry on June 14, 2012 at 6:14am

I am not able to reproduce your problems. Attached example works for me, just connect it to a NURBS surface in Rhino (and adjust the Number slider's ranges to those of the parameter domain).

Could you please check the following:

Do you have the latest version of Grasshopper installed (0.8.0066)? If not, please upgrade.
Does the About dialog work? Double-click the goat component and press the "About ..." button. If the About dialog does not work, please check that you installed the correct version of goat (32-bit vs. 64-bit).

Thanks.

Attachments:

goat_example_maxz_surface_point.gh, 3 KB

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on June 14, 2012 at 7:38am

Hi Simon thanks for the reply.

When I opened your example it worked. Although it didn't achieve the highest point -- far from it -- no mater what algorithm was used.

Also once I deleted your component and then used one from the toolbar It didn't work correctly again.

I have 0.8.0066 installed.
The About dialogue window works.

On a side can I recommend you also create GHA information content to access from the Grasshopper About window to keep in line with other plugins. This is a convenient way to keep track of what users have installed when trouble shooting problems with GH.

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 9:55am

I get the same behavior with the file you sent (slider positions change maybe once, no Optimization Successful box).

This is the 'About' box popping up. Again: Rhino 5 64-bit, GH 0.8.0066...

I cleared out the components, started GH again, closed GH/Rhino, installed 64-bit components again, same behavior. I could try the 32-bit version on Rhino 4?

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 10:10am

The 32-bit version seems to operate to some extent in Rhino 4 SR9, the the solvers do not seem to find the 'best' solution:

The third 'local' solver also had similar behavior...

The first 'global' solver seemed to do better, but now my Rhino 4 is caught in a 'not responding' pose... It ran for a few iterations, seemed to be finding the highest point, and perhaps when it was about to pop up the success window, it crapped out...maybe it was too excited that it finally got it! As I write this it is still 'not responding.'

Permalink Reply by Simon Flöry on June 14, 2012 at 11:45am

Danny, are you experiencing this on 64-bit Rhino 5 as well? Thanks for pointing me to GHA information, I'll add this in the next version.

Luis, can you please send me the surface rhino file, so that I can work on the same data? thanks.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on June 14, 2012 at 1:48pm

Yes Rhino 5 64 bit

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 2:40pm

Somehow testing again, things are 'working' on Rhino 4, but still, the first Global solver hangs rhino when its about to successfully complete the optimization. I was about to send you the files, but well, Rhino crashed!

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 2:51pm

Here are the files. On my machine, both 'global' solvers make Rhino hang after a bit and it becomes not responsive...

Attachments:

anySrf2.3dm, 167 KB
theGoat_testSrf.gh, 3 KB

Permalink Reply by Simon Flöry on June 20, 2012 at 2:03am

Thanks for your reports, guys.

There seems to be an issue with goat on 64-bit plattforms, which I will examine further once I have access again to a 64 bit machine with Rhino 5 installed. This may take a week or two, so I ask for your patience here.

I did some extensive tests on the global solvers and the stopping criteria do not work reliable for these. After some more tests, I will discuss this upstream with the NLopt project. In the meantime, please activate the fourth stopping criteria, so that the optimization stops after a certain amount of seconds.

It does not matter that the solution is not perfect for the global optimization, when stopped by a time threshold. When solving an optimization problem, you typically

first employ a global solver to get somewhere close to the opimal solution
and then use a local solver to find the extremum quickly

If it's ok with you, Luis, I will prepare some walk-through example based on your data this week for goat's local and global solvers, which I will publish here on the forum.

Permalink Reply by Simon Flöry on July 25, 2012 at 8:17am

I finally tracked down the issues with 64-bit versions of Rhino 5. Latest release 1.2 should work on all Rhinos.

thanks for your feedback, simon