Introduction

This is a book about writing code against the C++ and Java APIs defined in the High Level Architecture (HLA) Interface Specification. This book does not attempt to teach you about the HLA, nor about distributed simulation, nor federation design. It is purely focussed on providing some example code for working with the available programming language APIs.

The chapters of this book progressively introduce the APIs as you might encounter them when writing a federate. The chapters are presented per the following template:

• Overview

• Pseudocode

• C++ code

• Java code

• API discussion

The core chapters of this book only present C++ and Java code since these are the only languages that have defined APIs witihn the HLA Interface Specification. I am interested in developing APIs in other languages and appendices for each language will appear in due course.

To actually experience the code in this book you will need software that actually implements the APIs. This software is known as a Runtime Infrastructure (RTI) and there are a number of commmercial (with free trial versions) and free and/or open source options available:

Commercial RTIs

• MAK RTI

• Pitch RTI

FOSS RTIs

• CERTI

• Portico

TODO: add some instructions on getting up and running with one (or more) of these RTIs.

TODO: Provide some context --- federation, federate, RTI, Ambassadors, Object Model, User Code --- and restate that this book focusses on the Ambassador interfaces.

Learning HLA

If you're interested in a more holistic introduction to the HLA, there are a few references that you might follow up on:

• HLA Tutorial
• Guide to Distributed Simulation with HLA
• Creating Computer Simulation Systems: An Introduction to the High Level Architecture