Getting Started

The following sections provide general background information for getting started with NetEvo. In addition, the standard distribution contains a wide range of examples covering the full functionality of the framework (located in the "examples" folder).

Installation

In order to use NetEvo the following prerequisites must be available (it may work with earlier versions of these libraries, however, testing will not have been performed):

• Python version 2.6 or later
• numpy
• SciPy
• networkx

The NetEvo library is contained within the single netevo.py file. To use the library this file can be included in the current PYTHON_PATH environmental variable, or placed in the same directory as the

Tutorial

Creating a dynamical network

NetEvo is built on top of the networkx library and as such the standard Graph and Digraph objects from networkx from the central object used. To allow for these

Simulating network dynamics

Simulators are functions that take a NetEvo network and use the attributes that define the node and edge dynamics and the initial state to simulate the dynamics. Several simulators are included to cover both continuous and discrete time dynamics and to provide access to different numerical methods.

Reporters

Evolving networks with dynamics

Evolving networks through optimisation

Visualising output

To be able to visualise dynamics the matplotlib library can be used.