GridVis: Visualisation of Island-Based Parallel Genetic Algorithms

Island Model parallel genetic algorithms rely on various migration models and their associated parameter settings. A fine understanding of how the islands interact and exchange informations is an important issue for the design of efficient algorithms. This article presents GridVis, an interactive tool for visualising the exchange of individuals and the propagation of fitness values between islands. We performed several experiments on a grid and on a cluster to evaluate GridVis’ ability to visualise the activity of each machine and the communication flow between machines. Experiments have been made on the optimisation of a Weierstrass function using the EASEA language, with two schemes: a scheme based on uniform islands and another based on specialised islands (Exploitation, Exploration and Storage Islands).