User documentation
The user documentation provides the documentation of the existing features of GroIMP available for users.
Preface
Dear user of GroIMP,
this is the user manual of GroIMP, the Growth-grammar-related
Interactive Modelling Platform. GroIMP is OSI certified open source software
and available at the web page www.grogra.de. Currently, the GroIMP
software is in a BETA 
state, which means that malfunctions may occur, though
the software has been tested in-depth. The latest news can be found at the web
page.
What is GroIMP
The modelling platform GroIMP is designed as an integrated platform incorporating modelling, visualization and interaction. It exhibits several features that make it suitable for the field of biological and ALife modelling:
The “modelling backbone” consists in the language XL. It is fully integrated, e.g., the user can interactively select the rules to be applied. GroIMP provides classes that can be used in modelling: Turtle commands, further geometrical classes like bicubic surfaces, the class Cell which has been used in the Game Of Life implementation, and so on. The outcome of a model is visualized within GroIMP. In the visual representation of the model output, users can interact with the dynamics of the model, e.g., by selecting or deleting elements. A networked mode is available, allowing different users to interact with the modelled world synchronously. This may be an interesting feature to be used in the field of e-learning.
RGG and XL
This section present the RGG and language XL as well as graph management & queries.
Ray tracers
GroIMP contains two built-in ray tracers, which can utilize a set of different ray processors. The ray tracers can be used for both light modeling and rendering. To use the renderer, select it as your Render View:
When starting any of these renderers, your Scene will be rendered as an image using the current camera viewpoint. In case it takes too long, you can interrupt the process with stop. In some cases, this might not work and GroIMP dies, so be sure to save your project before experimenting with the renderers. When you moove the camera after the renderer has finished, the 3D View switches back to the default “interactive” OpenGL renderer.
Additional User interfaces
Besides the Graphical user interface that is used in GroIMP by default, it is possible to execute models in other ways. This can be useful for specific scenarios such as larger pipelines or remote execution. In general a user interface describes how the user communicates with the software (GroIMP).
For example with the graphical user interface windows and panels are used for this communication:
Plugins
This section present the plugin management in GroIMP.