Groups

These are  logical groupings of neurons and / or synapses, and of other groups.   There are many reasons to collect neurons and synpases together into more organized sets.  For example, it can be useful to move specific groups of neurons around as a unit, or to randomize or otherwise permute them.  It is also useful to be able to associate some groups of elements with special operations and data structures. Perhaps the most important groups are subnetworks, which are discussed separately.

Here is an example of a group, a backprop network, which is itself comprised of 5 subgroups: 3 neuron groups and 2 weight groups.  You can click on any of  the interaction tabs and the associated elements will be selected.  This can be useful for randomizing, moving, and deleting elements.

Interaction Box

Groups are distinguished by being surrounded by a gray line, with a special tab, often in the upper left-hand corner. This box is the your interface with the subnetwork and its properties. 

Single Click

Single clicking on the interaction box of a group highlights all of that groups nodes and / or weights.   They can be dragged around as a unit,which is often very convenient.  They can also be modified by any comand that only modifies selected elements. For example they can be randomized, incremented, decremented (using the up and down arrows) or "cleared" (set to 0).

Right click  / Group Actions

By right-clicking on a group's interaction box various actions arise.  Many of these are customized to a particular group type. 

Double Click

If you double-click on the subnetwork tab it calls up that network's properties dialog, if a property dialog is defined for that group.

Default Group Actions

 All groups have the following default actions defined:

Remove group

Delete the group and all its constituents.

Edit group name

Edit the name of the group which appears in the interaction tab.


Neuron and Synapse Groups

Neuron Groups and synpase groups can be created from existing collections of neurons or synapses.   This can be useful for organizing a complex network.

Neuron Group

To create a neuron group select the neurons  you want to add to the group and in the network or popup menu select Edit > Group > Neuron Group.

Synapse Group

To create a synpase group select the syanpses you want to add to the group and in the network or popup menu select Edit > Group > Synapse Group.