Inspector View
Clicking an experiment card opens the inspector. The layout has four main areas.
Brain Panel
Section titled “Brain Panel”The central brain viewer displays the evolved connectome topology:
- Sensor nodes (purple, left column) - brain inputs from the environment
- Hidden nodes (yellow, center) - evolved internal processing neurons
- Actuator nodes (green, right column) - brain outputs that control the agent
- Connections - green lines for excitatory (positive weight), red for inhibitory (negative weight)
- Signal particles - animated dots flowing along connections during replay playback, showing live signal propagation
The generation watermark (large faint number, top-left) shows the current generation. The fitness HUD (top-right) shows the best fitness at the current generation.
Click any node to see its ID, type, activation function, and connections in a tooltip.
View Modes
Section titled “View Modes”The brain panel has six view modes, selectable from the tab bar at the top:
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| 2D | Force-directed graph with signal particles (default) |
| 3D | Interactive Three.js rotatable brain with depth separation |
| Flow | Sankey-style diagram showing pathway strength as flow width |
| Regions | SVG wiring diagram with nodes grouped into region boxes |
| Activity | Temporal heatmap of all node activations over time |
| Findings | Automated analysis report with topology, pathways, correlations |
Node Inspector
Section titled “Node Inspector”Click any node (in 2D or 3D view) to open the Node Inspector in the side panel:
- Node type, ID, activation function, bias, and region
- Live activation value
- All incoming connections with source label, weight, and source activation
- All outgoing connections with target label, weight, and computed signal
- Hover a connection in the inspector to highlight it on the canvas
Brain Surgery (Local/Sandbox only)
Section titled “Brain Surgery (Local/Sandbox only)”When connected to a local or sandbox engine, the node inspector shows ON/OFF toggle buttons on each connection. This enables ablation - disabling connections to test their functional necessity:
- Click a node to open the inspector
- Click ON next to a connection to disable it (ablate)
- The viewer sends the modified brain to the engine for re-simulation
- The replay updates showing behavior without that connection
- Click OFF to re-enable, or Reset to restore the original brain
A “Modified” badge shows when ablations are active, with a summary of changes.
Timeline
Section titled “Timeline”The timeline at the bottom shows the evolution history:
- Fitness mode - best fitness (bright line) and average fitness (dim line) across all generations, with a filled area showing the fitness range
- Species mode - species count over generations (toggle with the Fitness/Species buttons)
- Checkpoint markers - small triangles at the bottom edge indicate generations where a checkpoint was saved
- Generation scrubber - drag the slider to move through generations; the brain viewer updates to show the topology at each checkpoint
- Replay progress - a thin line along the bottom shows how far through the current replay tick sequence you are
Hover over the timeline to see exact values. Click to jump to a generation.
Side Panel
Section titled “Side Panel”The right side panel shows:
- Node Inspector - appears when a node is clicked (details, connections, ablation toggles)
- Agent State - all agent state values during replay (bars for normalized values, numbers for counters)
- Sensors (collapsible) - every sensor input value with purple bars
- Outputs (collapsible) - every actuator output value with blue bars
- World - the simulation world view (see below)
- Stats - node count, connection count, species count, fitness, and domain-specific metrics
- Events (collapsible) - scrolling log of simulation events, color-coded by type
World Views
Section titled “World Views”The viewer renders two world types, auto-detected from the replay data:
Grid World (Survival Domain)
Section titled “Grid World (Survival Domain)”A square canvas in the side panel showing a 2D grid with food (green), water (blue), dangerous items (red), and the agent (teal dot with glow).
Linear Route (Rail Domain)
Section titled “Linear Route (Rail Domain)”A full-width strip between the brain panel and timeline showing the train route:
- Scrolling track that follows the train position
- Signal heads colored by aspect (green, yellow, red)
- Station platforms with abbreviated names
- Level crossing markers (X symbols)
- Kilometer markers along the track
- Speed readout (top-right) and position (top-left)
The viewport auto-scrolls to keep the train centered. The world type is determined automatically from the replay data dimensions.
Playback Controls
Section titled “Playback Controls”| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| Play/Pause button (or spacebar) | Start/stop replay playback |
| Generation scrubber | Drag to move through evolution generations |
| Timeline click | Jump to a specific generation |
| Speed | Playback runs at approximately 60 ticks per second |
When you scrub to a different generation, the viewer loads that checkpoint’s brain topology and starts a new replay simulation for it.