How can I view the automatically generated initial population from GA in Global Optimization Toolbox?

I am using the GA function in the Optimization Toolbox, and I'm trying to figure out how I can see the initial population that MATLAB created for me. Any tips on that?

Answer 1

[Prabhakar]

To see the intial population, one can specify/set the 'OutputFcns' property from the option used by GA. The function set by 'OutputFcns' gets called every itteration. First write a function MATLAB file called my_view containing

    function [state, options,optchanged] =  my_view(options,state,flag,interval)  
    optchanged = false; 
  disp(state.Population) 
    end

Now set the 'OutputFcns' property to this function via

options = gaoptimset('OutputFcns',@my_view);

Finally call the GA function with this specified option

x = ga(fitnessfcn,nvars,options)

[saranya thangavel]

i am using GA for feture selection,i need to specify my features in initial population.features are in double vectore format.can u tell me how to specify those values in initial population? i need format,i am using matlab12b optimization toolbox

[Igor]

saranya thangavel,

I might not have understood what you mean, but if you need to pass your initial population instead of having GA produce it for you using a creation function, this can be done with the Initial population option. From the help:

Initial population (InitialPopulation) specifies an initial population for the genetic algorithm. The default value is [], in which case ga uses the default Creation function to create an initial population. If you enter a nonempty array in the Initial population field, the array must have no more than Population size rows, and exactly Number of variables columns. In this case, the genetic algorithm calls a Creation function to generate the remaining individuals, if required.

Then use something like

options = gaoptimset('InitialPopulation', Your_population)

and call GA with this options structure.

You can also write your own creation function.