A unified simulation framework for spatial stochastic models

For spatial stochastic models, a lot of programs exist which deal with the simulation of specific models. But, combining them is not that easy and usually requires greater effort. This paper presents an object-oriented framework, i.e. a set of collaborating abstract and concrete classes, dealing with the simulation of such models. The selected fundamental models are only illustrating examples for the general concept. From the Java implementation of this framework, two code examples are shown, which could also be implemented similarly in any other object-oriented programming language. All interfaces and a lot of concrete classes can be implemented dimension-independent. The design and implementation problems arising in the context of static and dynamic plus sampling are specifically discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.