Hi Yuseung Kim,

I barely started my technical evaluation of MASON...but the answer to your
first question is (theoretically), yes. An open source (Java-based) project
called, GeoTools (now on its second release) has more than enough stable
classes to read, display, manipulate and save digital maps. The project URL
where you can download the required files is at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/geotools/.

I'm not sure if we have similar requirements but I am developing routines to
use spatial data (ESRI Shapefiles) to initialize our ABMs (automatically
create agents and set attributes) and forecast the range of possibilities
from these known conditions -- to make the results useful to resource
managers.

At this early stage, I find the architecture of MASON easy to deal with and
I do not foresee problems in incorporating such utilities. I will share my
routines with the core MASON developers/users if and when I have stable
versions that other MASON users can use.

Cheers,

Felimon C. Gayanilo, Jr.
Senior Software Engineer
National Center for Caribbean Coral Reef Research (NCORE)
University of Miami - Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, Florida 33149  USA
ph: (305) 421 4828    fax: (305) 421 4910
URL: http://ncore.rsmas.miami.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: MASON Multiagent Simulation Toolkit
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Yuseung Kim
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 4:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Mason and GIS

I started mason and have some questions.
How can I use GIS data with Mason?
Can I make agents from shape file?
It would be great if there are some packages for using GIS with mason.
Thanks.