COSC 5P71 Genetic Programming

Course info

• Textbook: A Field Guide to Genetic Programming by Riccardo Poli, William B. Langdon, and Nicholas F. McPhee. ISBN 978-1-4092-0073-4. 2008.
  • Download a free copy (and order a paperback version) here. Here's a local copy.
  • Book web site: www.gp-field-guide.org.uk

• Course outline
• Project description
  • Project deadline: 4pm Monday January 12, 2009.

• Term test date: Tuesday November 11 (in class)

• Assignment 1
  • Local copy of data.
  • An example report. (local access)
• Assignment 2
  • Note: Please submit the following for assignment 2 and 3:
    1. Hard copy of report, source code (code you created, not system's code).
    2. Electronic copies of: report, source code, GP output files, best solutions (clearly labelled), training and testing images (clearly labelled).

  • Helpful papers. Lots of example language primitives for computer vision problems.
  • Satellite image. (colour) (obtained from http://www.airventure.org/)
  • Satellite image. (greyscale)
  • Subimage. (colour)
  • Subimage. (greyscale) Please use this image and one of the following ground truth (either mask or dot) as part of your testing data for your GP solutions! That way we can compare everyone's results on the same image.
  • Subimage. (ground truth, mask style)
  • Subimage. (ground truth, dot style)
  • Two more test images: Dubai Airport, Area 51

  • Some results:
    • Best results on supplied image: Cross.pdf
    • Other results: Corrado 1, Corrado 2, Pascal, Robert

• Assignment 3:
  • New due date: 12:00 noon, Monday, December 8. No lates!
  • IEEE formatting information. If you use word, then use this file here as a template: TRANS-JOUR.doc. Latex templates are there as well.
  • Helpful papers.
  • Good tutorial on using T-tests and Excel.

• Here's the COSC assignment cover page.

• Seminar schedule and topics.

• Supplementary lecture material:
  • Fitness table
  • lilGP notes
  • Course notes on multi-objective optimization.
  • This paper has more discussion about Pareto ranking (see Section 3.1, and Fig.2): B.J. Ross and H. Zhu. "Procedural Texture Evolution Using Multiobjective Optimization". New Generation Computing, vol. 22, n. 3, 2004, pp. 271-293. (PDF).
• Recommended reading.
• Papers discussed in class, or relevant to assignments :
  • "On the Futility of Blind Search: An Algorithmic View of 'No Free Lunch'", J.C. Culberson, Evolutionary Computation, 6(2):109-127, 1998. (Brock access only)
  • "Generation of Vector-Based Graphics from Existing Bitmap Images by Means of the Genetic Algorithm", C. Weller.

Tools

• lilGP 1.1 Home Page
• Complete lilGP1.1 with documentation (local copy; original source here)
• Patched lilGP1.1 with strong typing, etc. (local copy)
• Uncompiled files are available locally here

• Documentation
  • lilGP 1.1 manual (Postscript)
  • Typed lilGP README file

• BST lilGP : an enhanced version created by Brock students
  • unix/irix: bstlilgp-0.5.0.zip and installation instructions.
  • Windows Visual Studio .NET: bstlilgp-0.5.4-win32.zip and installation instructions.
  • Windows Code Warrior: bstlilgp-0.5.4-win32.zip and installation instructions.

• Example application: Symbolic regression (for strongly typed lilGP 1.1 or BSTlilGP)

Other GP systems:

• ECJ: A Java-based GP system.
• Open BEAGLE: A C++ based GP system.
  • Here are some notes on getting it running.
• GPLAB - a GP system for Matlab
• CNGGGPS - Grammar-based system developed by Brock student Stephen Baker (Linux)
• AIM - commercial machine language GP system

In the news...

• Minds of their own (New Scientist)
• New photofit evolves a suspect's face (New Scientist)
• Fast cars could be tuned by evolution (New Scientist)
• Gladiator-style wars select out weak programs (New Scientist)
• Genetic Algorithm tunes up public speakers (New Scientist)
• Evolution could speed net downloads (New Scientist)
• Radio emerges from the electronic soup (New Scientist)
• Computer learns to play checkers (New York Times)
• Computer automatically designs, manufactures robots (CNN)
  • Also see The Golem Project

Machine learning problem sets

• UCI Machine Learning Repository
• Computer Vision Test Images (U Montreal)
• Computer Vision Test Images (CMU)
• Satellite Images and Data Sets
• More Images Databases

Useful Links

• Genetic Programming bibliographies:one; two
• Citeseer
• GA discussion at AAI.org
• Nero: GA and ANN-based computer game
• EvoWeb
• genetic-programming.org
• IlliGAL Home Page
• John Koza's Home Page
• The Baldwin Effect: A Bibliography
• Karl Sims' Virtual Creatures
• Framsticks Alife, 3D evolution and simulation
• Artificial Life Online
• Natural Selection Inc.
• Memetic Algorithms' Home Page
• Evolutionary Optimization
• The Genetic Programming Notebook
• Genetic Programming homepage at UCL
• The Genetic Algorithms Archive
• GenJam - GA and music!
• Affinnova

Go to Brock Computer Science home page.