Quickstart
Installation of Julia
For a quick test of this program, it is NOT needed to install VSCode, git or bash. Just installing Julia is sufficient, and that can be done in a few minutes.
Windows
Windows
Please download and install Julia using juliaup
. Launch the Command Prompt
app and type:
winget install julia -s msstore
juliaup add 1.10
juliaup update
If that doesn't work, download https://install.julialang.org/Julia.appinstaller and double-click on the downloaded file to install it.
Optional
It is suggested to install Windows Terminal . Copy and paste works better, unicode works much better and you can use it with bash
or Command Prompt
, whatever you prefer. It is suggested to set one of these two as default using the Settings
menu of Windows Terminal.
Linux
Linux
Copy and past the following line to install julia:
curl -fsSL https://install.julialang.org | sh
Restart your terminal, and then execute:
juliaup add 1.10
juliaup update
It is suggested to add the following line to your .bashrc
file:
alias jl='./bin/run_julia'
This makes it possible to run Julia with the shortcut jl
later.
Mac
Mac
Please download and install juliaup
as explained at https://github.com/JuliaLang/juliaup .
Restart your terminal, and then execute:
juliaup add 1.10
juliaup update
Create a test project
Launch a command prompt and create a folder with the name "test":
mkdir test
cd test
julia --project="."
With the last command, we told Julia to create a new project in the current directory.
You can copy the examples to your project with:
using KiteModels
KiteModels.install_examples()
Your folder structure should now look like this:
shell> tree -d
├── data
├── examples
└── test
├── data
└── examples
5 directories
You can access the operating system command line by typing the character ";", you then get a "shell" prompt and can enter operating system commands. To leave shell mode, type <BACKSLASH>. On windows you need to type tree /f
instead of tree
to see the files.
Executing the first example
From the Julia prompt you can use the command "include" to execute a script:
include("examples/simulate_simple.jl")
On Windows you need to type "\\" instead of "/":
include("examples\\simulate_simple.jl")
You will see the 4-point kite fly for 30s. If you want to change the settings of the simulation, open the file simulate_simple.jl
in your favorite text editor, modify the settings at the beginning of the file and execute the include command again. You can use the <TAB> key for autocompletion, for example include("ex<TAB>
completes to include("examples\
which can save a lot of typing. If you type <TAB> again you get a list of files to choose from.
Try out changing the following default settings:
dt = 0.05
STEPS = 600
PLOT = true
FRONT_VIEW = false
ZOOM = true
PRINT = false
STATISTIC = false
Now you can quit Julia with the command exit()
. If you want to launch Julia again, be sure to be in the correct folder and then type julia --project
. Without the parameter --project
it will not load your project settings.
The first run of the script will be slow because Julia must compile the code. The second and any further run is very fast, but only as long as you do not leave your Julia session.
Comparing the one-point and the four-point kite model
Start Julia in the project folder you created before:
cd test
julia --project
and then execute the command
using KiteModels
include("examples/compare_kps3_kps4.jl")
Use the command include("examples\\compare_kps3_kps4.jl")
on Windows.
The last view of the animation should look like this:
You can save what you see with the command savefig("kite.png")
.
Exercise
Modify the variable ALPHA_ZERO
in line 11 of the script until the lift force of the 1 point model and the 4 point model match.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please ask in the Julia Discourse forum in the section modelling and simulation , or in in the section First steps . The Julia community is very friendly and responsive.