Nervestaple:
I'm glad for yours (and Hui's) interest in the underlying model networks in Simbrain, especially since the code wasn't originally written to be used as a library. On the other hand, we did really try to make it clean, and separate from the GUI view, and it went through several refactors. I'm especially glad you are happy with the spiking neuron stuff, since I didn't have much guidance when I implemented that (e.g. I had to come up with weird class names like "spikeresponder").
The first thing I'll do is mention SNNAP (
http://snnap.uth.tmc.edu/), but you say you've been looking around so you probably saw it already.
In terms of using Simbrain outside of the GUI, this is becoming one emphasis with version 3. So, I'd really like to work with you in implementing your spiking networks outside of the GUI. Perhaps we can talk about what you'd like to accomplish, and then we can spend a few weeks making as much progress as we can. In the process I'll put up some docs, add relevant services in the API, etc. We also plan to improve the updating so it can run efficiently on multi-core machines. Then after a few weeks you can make the call about whether it looks like it will work for your needs. Either way it will push me to do some things on my todo list!
If we do pursue this, it would be great if you jumped in to the code at some point, e.g. to improve the numerical integration implementation (we currently use Euler's method).
Feel free to contact me directly or continue this thread here. There is also a developer list, but since we just switched back to sourceforge it may be migrated there. If it is we could talk there too.
- Jeff
