This tutorial is automatically generated from the file cell_based/test/tutorial/TestCreatingAndUsingANewForceTutorial.hpp at revision 5e8c8d7218a9/git_repo. Note that the code is given in full at the bottom of the page.

An example showing how to create and use a new force

Introduction

In previous cell-based Chaste tutorials, we used existing force classes to define how cells interact mechanically. In this tutorial we show how to create a new force class, and how this can be used in a cell-based simulation.

1. Including header files

As in previous cell-based Chaste tutorials, we begin by including the necessary header files.

#include <cxxtest/TestSuite.h>
#include "CheckpointArchiveTypes.hpp"
#include "AbstractCellBasedTestSuite.hpp"

The next header defines a base class for forces, from which the new class will inherit.

#include "AbstractForce.hpp"

The remaining header files define classes that will be used in the cell-based simulation test. We have encountered each of these header files in previous cell-based Chaste tutorials.

#include "HoneycombMeshGenerator.hpp"
#include "FixedG1GenerationalCellCycleModel.hpp"
#include "GeneralisedLinearSpringForce.hpp"
#include "OffLatticeSimulation.hpp"
#include "CellsGenerator.hpp"
#include "TransitCellProliferativeType.hpp"
#include "SmartPointers.hpp"

This header ensures that this test is only run on one process, since it doesn't support parallel execution.

#include "FakePetscSetup.hpp"

Defining the force class

As an example, let us consider a force for a two-dimensional cell-based simulation, that mimics gravity. To implement this we define a force boundary condition class, MyForce, which inherits from AbstractForce and overrides the methods AddForceContribution() and OutputForceParameters().

Note that usually this code would be separated out into a separate declaration in a .hpp file and definition in a .cpp file.

class MyForce : public AbstractForce<2>
{
private:

This force class includes a member variable, mStrength, which defines the strength of the force. This member variable will be set in the constructor.

    double mStrength;

We only need to include the next block of code if we wish to be able to archive (save or load) the force model object in a cell-based simulation. The code consists of a serialize method, in which we first archive the force using the serialization code defined in the base class AbstractForce, then archive the member variable.

    friend class boost::serialization::access;
    template<class Archive>
    void serialize(Archive & archive, const unsigned int version)
    {
        archive & boost::serialization::base_object<AbstractForce<2> >(*this);
        archive & mStrength;
    }

public:

The first public method is a default constructor, which calls the base constructor. There is a single input argument, which defines the strength of the force. We provide a default value of 1.0 for this argument. Inside the method, we add an assertion to make sure that the strength is strictly positive.

    MyForce(double strength=1.0)
        : AbstractForce<2>(),
          mStrength(strength)
    {
        assert(mStrength > 0.0);
    }

The second public method overrides AddForceContribution(). This method takes in one arguments, a reference to the cell population itself.

    void AddForceContribution(AbstractCellPopulation<2>& rCellPopulation)
    {

Inside the method, we loop over nodes, and add a constant vector to each node, in the negative y-direction and of magnitude mStrength.

        c_vector<double, 2> force = zero_vector<double>(2);
        force(1) = -mStrength;

        for (unsigned node_index=0; node_index<rCellPopulation.GetNumNodes(); node_index++)
        {
            rCellPopulation.GetNode(node_index)->AddAppliedForceContribution(force);
        }
    }

We also add a get method for mStrength, to allow for testing.

    double GetStrength()
    {
        return mStrength;
    }

Just as we encountered in UserTutorials/CreatingAndUsingANewCellKiller, here we must override a method that outputs any member variables to a specified results file rParamsFile. In our case, we output the member variable mStrength, then call the method on the base class.

    void OutputForceParameters(out_stream& rParamsFile)
    {
        *rParamsFile << "\t\t\t<Strength>" << mStrength << "</Strength>\n";
        AbstractForce<2>::OutputForceParameters(rParamsFile);
    }
};

As mentioned in previous cell-based Chaste tutorials, we need to include the next block of code to be able to archive the force object in a cell-based simulation, and to obtain a unique identifier for our new force for writing results to file.

#include "SerializationExportWrapper.hpp"
CHASTE_CLASS_EXPORT(MyForce)
#include "SerializationExportWrapperForCpp.hpp"
CHASTE_CLASS_EXPORT(MyForce)

This completes the code for MyForce. Note that usually this code would be separated out into a separate declaration in a .hpp file and definition in a .cpp file.

The Tests

We now define the test class, which inherits from AbstractCellBasedTestSuite.

class TestCreatingAndUsingANewForceTutorial : public AbstractCellBasedTestSuite
{
public:

Testing the force

We now test that our new force is implemented correctly.

    void TestMyForce()
    {

We first create a MeshBasedCellPopulation using the helper classes HoneycombMeshGenerator and CellsGenerator, as in previous cell-based Chaste tutorials.

        HoneycombMeshGenerator generator(7, 7);
        MutableMesh<2,2>* p_mesh = generator.GetMesh();

        std::vector<CellPtr> cells;
        CellsGenerator<FixedG1GenerationalCellCycleModel, 2> cells_generator;
        cells_generator.GenerateBasic(cells, p_mesh->GetNumNodes());

        MeshBasedCellPopulation<2> cell_population(*p_mesh, cells);

Initialise all node forces to zero

        for (unsigned i=0; i<cell_population.GetNumNodes(); i++)
        {
             cell_population.GetNode(i)->ClearAppliedForce();
        }

We now create a force object of strength 5.0.

        MyForce force(5.0);

We test that the force calculation is correct.

        force.AddForceContribution(cell_population);

        for (unsigned node_index=0; node_index<cell_population.GetNumNodes(); node_index++)
        {
            TS_ASSERT_DELTA(cell_population.GetNode(node_index)->rGetAppliedForce()[0], 0.0, 1e-4);
            TS_ASSERT_DELTA(cell_population.GetNode(node_index)->rGetAppliedForce()[1], -5.0, 1e-4);
        }

The last block of code provides an archiving test for the force class, in a similar way to previous cell-based Chaste tutorials:

Note that it is important to test archiving by using an abstract pointer, so that you check that boost can identify and record which concrete class it should be dealing with. This tests the CHASTE_CLASS_EXPORT(MyForce?) lines are implemented correctly.

        OutputFileHandler handler("archive", false);
        std::string archive_filename = handler.GetOutputDirectoryFullPath() + "my_force.arch";
        {
            AbstractForce<2>* const p_force = new MyForce(2.6);
            std::ofstream ofs(archive_filename.c_str());
            boost::archive::text_oarchive output_arch(ofs);

            output_arch << p_force;
            delete p_force;
        }
        {
            std::ifstream ifs(archive_filename.c_str(), std::ios::binary);
            boost::archive::text_iarchive input_arch(ifs);

            AbstractForce<2>* p_force;
            input_arch >> p_force;

            TS_ASSERT_DELTA(dynamic_cast<MyForce*>(p_force)->GetStrength(), 2.6, 1e-4);

            delete p_force;
        }
    }

Using the force in a cell-based simulation

We now provide a test demonstrating how MyForce can be used in a cell-based simulation.

    void TestOffLatticeSimulationWithMyForce()
    {

Once again we create a MeshBasedCellPopulation.

        HoneycombMeshGenerator generator(5, 5);
        MutableMesh<2,2>* p_mesh = generator.GetMesh();

        std::vector<CellPtr> cells;
        MAKE_PTR(TransitCellProliferativeType, p_transit_type);
        CellsGenerator<FixedG1GenerationalCellCycleModel, 2> cells_generator;
        cells_generator.GenerateBasicRandom(cells, p_mesh->GetNumNodes(), p_transit_type);

        MeshBasedCellPopulation<2> cell_population(*p_mesh, cells);

We then pass in the cell population into an OffLatticeSimulation, and set the output directory, output multiple, and end time.

        OffLatticeSimulation<2> simulator(cell_population);
        simulator.SetOutputDirectory("TestOffLatticeSimulationWithMyForce");
        simulator.SetSamplingTimestepMultiple(12);
        simulator.SetEndTime(5.0);

We create our force law and pass it to the OffLatticeSimulation.

        MAKE_PTR_ARGS(MyForce, p_force, (0.5));
        simulator.AddForce(p_force);

We also create a force law to say how the cells interact and pass it to the OffLatticeSimulation.

        MAKE_PTR(GeneralisedLinearSpringForce<2>, p_linear_force);
        p_linear_force->SetCutOffLength(1.5);
        simulator.AddForce(p_linear_force);

To run the simulation, we call Solve().

        simulator.Solve();
    }

When you visualize the results with

java Visualize2dCentreCells /tmp/$USER/testoutput/TestOffLatticeSimulationWithMyForce/results_from_time_0

you should see a collection of cells moving downwards and proliferating.

};

Code

The full code is given below

File name `TestCreatingAndUsingANewForceTutorial.hpp`

#include <cxxtest/TestSuite.h>
#include "CheckpointArchiveTypes.hpp"
#include "AbstractCellBasedTestSuite.hpp"

#include "AbstractForce.hpp"
#include "HoneycombMeshGenerator.hpp"
#include "FixedG1GenerationalCellCycleModel.hpp"
#include "GeneralisedLinearSpringForce.hpp"
#include "OffLatticeSimulation.hpp"
#include "CellsGenerator.hpp"
#include "TransitCellProliferativeType.hpp"
#include "SmartPointers.hpp"

#include "FakePetscSetup.hpp"

class MyForce : public AbstractForce<2>
{
private:

    double mStrength;

    friend class boost::serialization::access;
    template<class Archive>
    void serialize(Archive & archive, const unsigned int version)
    {
        archive & boost::serialization::base_object<AbstractForce<2> >(*this);
        archive & mStrength;
    }

public:
    MyForce(double strength=1.0)
        : AbstractForce<2>(),
          mStrength(strength)
    {
        assert(mStrength > 0.0);
    }

    void AddForceContribution(AbstractCellPopulation<2>& rCellPopulation)
    {
        c_vector<double, 2> force = zero_vector<double>(2);
        force(1) = -mStrength;

        for (unsigned node_index=0; node_index<rCellPopulation.GetNumNodes(); node_index++)
        {
            rCellPopulation.GetNode(node_index)->AddAppliedForceContribution(force);
        }
    }

    double GetStrength()
    {
        return mStrength;
    }

    void OutputForceParameters(out_stream& rParamsFile)
    {
        *rParamsFile << "\t\t\t<Strength>" << mStrength << "</Strength>\n";
        AbstractForce<2>::OutputForceParameters(rParamsFile);
    }
};

#include "SerializationExportWrapper.hpp"
CHASTE_CLASS_EXPORT(MyForce)
#include "SerializationExportWrapperForCpp.hpp"
CHASTE_CLASS_EXPORT(MyForce)

class TestCreatingAndUsingANewForceTutorial : public AbstractCellBasedTestSuite
{
public:

    void TestMyForce()
    {
        HoneycombMeshGenerator generator(7, 7);
        MutableMesh<2,2>* p_mesh = generator.GetMesh();

        std::vector<CellPtr> cells;
        CellsGenerator<FixedG1GenerationalCellCycleModel, 2> cells_generator;
        cells_generator.GenerateBasic(cells, p_mesh->GetNumNodes());

        MeshBasedCellPopulation<2> cell_population(*p_mesh, cells);

        for (unsigned i=0; i<cell_population.GetNumNodes(); i++)
        {
             cell_population.GetNode(i)->ClearAppliedForce();
        }

        MyForce force(5.0);

        force.AddForceContribution(cell_population);

        for (unsigned node_index=0; node_index<cell_population.GetNumNodes(); node_index++)
        {
            TS_ASSERT_DELTA(cell_population.GetNode(node_index)->rGetAppliedForce()[0], 0.0, 1e-4);
            TS_ASSERT_DELTA(cell_population.GetNode(node_index)->rGetAppliedForce()[1], -5.0, 1e-4);
        }

        OutputFileHandler handler("archive", false);
        std::string archive_filename = handler.GetOutputDirectoryFullPath() + "my_force.arch";
        {
            AbstractForce<2>* const p_force = new MyForce(2.6);
            std::ofstream ofs(archive_filename.c_str());
            boost::archive::text_oarchive output_arch(ofs);

            output_arch << p_force;
            delete p_force;
        }
        {
            std::ifstream ifs(archive_filename.c_str(), std::ios::binary);
            boost::archive::text_iarchive input_arch(ifs);

            AbstractForce<2>* p_force;
            input_arch >> p_force;

            TS_ASSERT_DELTA(dynamic_cast<MyForce*>(p_force)->GetStrength(), 2.6, 1e-4);

            delete p_force;
        }
    }

    void TestOffLatticeSimulationWithMyForce()
    {
        HoneycombMeshGenerator generator(5, 5);
        MutableMesh<2,2>* p_mesh = generator.GetMesh();

        std::vector<CellPtr> cells;
        MAKE_PTR(TransitCellProliferativeType, p_transit_type);
        CellsGenerator<FixedG1GenerationalCellCycleModel, 2> cells_generator;
        cells_generator.GenerateBasicRandom(cells, p_mesh->GetNumNodes(), p_transit_type);

        MeshBasedCellPopulation<2> cell_population(*p_mesh, cells);

        OffLatticeSimulation<2> simulator(cell_population);
        simulator.SetOutputDirectory("TestOffLatticeSimulationWithMyForce");
        simulator.SetSamplingTimestepMultiple(12);
        simulator.SetEndTime(5.0);

        MAKE_PTR_ARGS(MyForce, p_force, (0.5));
        simulator.AddForce(p_force);

        MAKE_PTR(GeneralisedLinearSpringForce<2>, p_linear_force);
        p_linear_force->SetCutOffLength(1.5);
        simulator.AddForce(p_linear_force);

        simulator.Solve();
    }
};