| Abstract | Agent-based modeling (ABM) has proved useful in a number of fields. Many of theearly successes of ABM were due to its ability to represent the processes of a
phenomenon. However, less emphasis has been placed in ABM on developing its ability
to replicate spatial patterns of phenomena. In order to do that, more powerful spatial
modeling techniques, like those within geographical information systems (GIS), are
necessary. The integration of these two tool sets into a cohesive package would allow for
elegant modeling of both process and pattern. One problem with an integrated toolkit is
that most GIS users are not programmers, but most GIS users are familiar with the use of
detailed graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in order to create complex visualizations of data.
Thus providing a detailed GUI to access an integrated ABM-GIS toolkit would vastly
expand the number of users for such a toolkit. This paper is a first step toward that goal.
We first outline several design principles for an ABM-GIS toolkit and then describe a
survey of extant toolkits (RepastPy, NetLogo, and MobiDyc) that were selected based on
the design principles. The toolkits were surveyed to see how well they fulfill some of the
design principles. This survey is not meant to be a comparative review of these toolkits
but rather it was conducted to determine what useful design principles can be gathered
from them that might inform a new “ideal” ABM-GIS toolkit. Finally, the paper
concludes with some design recommendations for such a toolkit.
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