In addition to component and reference objects, SansGUI provides simulation control objects for the types of simulation control involved, and the simulation control parameters. Due to its object-oriented nature, SansGUI uses objects to determine the mechanism of simulation control. The names of the simulation control objects are always Default. The SansGUI Object System supports two types of simulation: In-Process Simulation Controls and External Process Simulation Controls.
In-process simulation means that the simulation will be executed in a thread inside the SansGUI process. The simulator will be using the same memory space that SansGUI allocated for the user's model. When in-process simulation is available, one of the supported in-process simulation control object is generated during a Project Model creation.
SansGUI supports in-process cycle simulations with the following user parameters:
Program Location: a field for entering the simulator dynamic linked library (DLL) file path. If present, it will be used; otherwise, the default DLL in the sim directory will be used.
Log File Name: the simulation output log file to be opened and written to. If not specified, the file name with a .log extension to the Project Model name in the current working directory (the directory where the Project Model file resides) will be used.
Beginning Cycle Number: the number of the first cycle. Normally, the value is 1.
Current Cycle Number: the current cycle number during a simulation run, updated by SansGUI automatically.
Pause at Cycle Number: specified by the user to pause the simulation when the current cycle number reaches this number. Enter the value 0 to indicate no pause.
Ending Cycle Number: the cycle number for the simulation to end. SansGUI terminates a simulation run when the current cycle number reaches or goes beyond this number. You can enter the value 0 to inform SansGUI to run the simulation forever, with endless loops.
Cycle Increment: the count to be added to the current cycle number after each simulation cycle.
Screen Refresh Interval: the interval for SansGUI to update the simulation result log. SansGUI checks the number of times the cycle increment being added to the current cycle number against this number to decide if the results from the current cycle should be entered into the log. Therefore, if the cycle increment is I and the screen refresh interval is R, at every I × R cycles the simulation output will be logged. The user can use this parameter to control the "resolution" of the output.
Part Evaluation Order: this parameter specifies the sequence of evaluation of the parts in the same assembly level in the Canvas View. The options are: 1) Name, using the parts' names in the lexical order, 2) Z-Order, from back to front, 3) Horizontal Scan Lines, from top to bottom and left to right in each scan line, 4) Vertical Scan Lines, from left to right and top to bottom in each scan line, and 5) Random, using a random sequence generated by SansGUI before a simulation run. Normally, the part evaluation order does not matter. At times, however, the simulation developer or the simulation user may want to control it by this means.
All these parameters are optional or have some default values. There may also be additional parameters defined by the simulation developer. The simulation user should examine them before starting a simulation.
External process simulation means that the simulation will be executed in a process external to the SansGUI process.
Simulator Program Path: the stand alone simulation program to be invoked. If not specified, the simulator found in the sim directory will be used.
Invocation Script: the script or command file that will be used to run the simulator. If not specified, SGxProc.bat in the bin directory will be used. When customization is needed, it is recommended that the simulation user make a copy of the original script and enter the path of the new, customized file in this field.
Model File Name: the name of the textual model file to be generated by SansGUI. If not specified, the default is the Project Model name with a .txt extension for the Tabular Data Blocks format or .xml for the XML Model Data format.
Model File Type: the type of the textual model file to be generated. SansGUI currently supports the Tabular Data Blocks and XML Model Data formats. Check your simulator manual for the selection of the Model File format.
Working Directory: the directory in which the simulator will be working. If not specified, it will be the directory where the Project Model resides.
Command Parameters: this field is optional and defined by the simulator. Check your simulator documentation to see if any command line parameter is needed.
The in-process and external process simulation controls do not have to be mutually exclusive. When both are defined in the simulator, the user can run in-process simulation in a highly interactive session while sending the model to an external job for an off-hour simulation run.
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SansGUI Modeling and Simulation Environment Version 1.2
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