MASON is a multi-agent simulation environment in java.

It is designed to be one of the

foundation for different purposes java simulations. It has many functions suitable for lightweight
simulations. It has both model library and an optional suite of visualization tools in 3D and 2D
environment. It was built by the help of George Mason Universitys Evolutionary Computation
and the GMU Center for Social Complexity. Designed by Sean Luke, Gabriel Catalin Balan,
Keith Sullivam and Liviu Panait, with the help from Claudio Cioffi Revilla, Sean Paus, Daniel
Kuebrich, Joey Harrson, and Ankur Desai. MASON is an acronym for Multi-Agent Simulator of
Neighborhoods or Networks. The software was first released on 2003 and still continues to be
updated. It was first developed with the java.net environment then later transferred to Google
Code and now currently at GitHub. Applets that has been developed with the help of MASON
includes Craig Raynolds Boids algorithm which is an artificial life program which simulates
flocking behaviour of birds, Balls and Bands, a simulation of Hookes Law, and an L- system
generator, Conways Game of Life. MASON is fast, portable and has a small size for a software.
The models are completely independent from visualization and can be removed, added, and
changed. It also has a recovery feature and can be migrated across different platforms. It is
considered to be accurate and precise as it can produce results similar with different platforms. It
is self-contained and can run with other java frameworks and applications. It also has a feature
that can generate PNG snapshots, graphs and charts.