Best Practice to Store Simulation Results - simulation

Dear Anylogic Community,
I am struggling with finding the right approach for storing my simulation results. I have datasets created that keep track of every value I am interested in. They live in Main (see below)
My aim is to do a parameter variation experiment. In every run, I change the value for p_nDrones (see below)
After the experiment, I would like to store all the datasets in one excel sheet.
However, when I do the parameter variation experiment and afterwards check the log of the dataset (datasets_log), the changed values do not even show up (2 is the value I did set up in the normal simulation).
Now my question. Do I need to create another type of dataset if I want to track the values that are produced in the experiments? Why are they not stored after executing the experiment?
I really would appreciate if someone could share the best way to set up this export of experiment results. I would like to store the whole time series for every dataset.
Thank you!

Best option would be to write the outputs to some external file at the end of each model run.
If you want to use Excel, which I personally would not advise, even though it has a nice excelFile.writeDataSet() function, you can.
I would rather write the data to a text file as you will have much for control over the writing, the file itself, it is thread-safe, and useable in many many more platforms than Microsoft Excel.
See my example below:
Setup parameters in your model that you will write the data to at the end of the model of type TextFile. Here I used the model on destroy code to write out the data from the data sets.
Here you can immediately see the benefit of using the text file! You can add the number of drones we are simulating (or scenario name or any other parameter) in a column, whereas with Excel this would be a pain...
Now you can pass your specific text file to the model to use by adding it to the parameter variation page, providing it to the model through the parameters.
You will see that I also set up some headers for the text file in the Initial Experiment setup part, and then at the very end of the experiment, I close the text files in the After experiment section so that the text files can be used.
Here is the result if you simply right-click on the text files and open them in Excel. (Excel will always have a purpose, even if it is just to open text files ;-) )

Related

Multiple agents arrival based on Variable and database column

In my source block I want to be the amount of agents based on two different factors namely the amount of beds and visitors per bed. The visitors per bed is just a variable (e.g. visitors=3) and the amount of beds is loaded from the database table which is an excel file (see first image). Now I want to code this in the code block as shown in the example in image 2, but I do not know the correct code and do not know if it is even possible.
Simplest solution is just to do the pre-calcs in the input file and have in the dbase.
The more complex solution is to set the Source arrivals as:
Now, you read your dbase code at the start of the model using SQL (i.e. the query constructor). Make the necessary computations and create a Dynamic Event for each arrival when you want it to happen, relative to the model start. Each dynamic event then calls the source.inject(1) method.
Better still is to not use Source at all but a simple Enter block. The dynamic event creates the agent with all relevant properties from your dbase and pushes it into the Enter block using enter.take(myNewAgent)
But as I said: this is not trivial

Parameter Variation: Tracking the Metadata

I am trying to use parameter variation in AnyLogic. My inputs are 3 parameters, each varying 5 times. My output is water demand. What I need from parameter variation is the way in which demand changes according to the different combinations of the three parameters. I imagine something like: there are 10,950 rows (one for each day), the first column is time (in days), the second column are the values for the first combination, the second column is the second combination, and so on and so forth. What would be the best way to track this metadata to then be able to export it to excel? I have added a "dataset" to my main to track demand through each simulation, but I am not sure what to add to the parameter variation experiment interface to track the output across the different iterations. It would also be helpful to have a way to know which combination of inputs produced a given output (for example, have the combination be the name for each column). I see that there are Java Actions, but I haven't been able to figure out the code to do what I need. I appreciate any help with this matter.
The easiest approach is just to track this in output database tables which are then exported to Excel at the end of your run. As long as these tables include outputs from multiple runs (and are, for example, only cleared at the start of the experiment not the run), your Parameter Variation experiment will end up with an Excel file having outcomes from all the runs. (You will probably need to turn off parallel execution in the PV experiment so you don't run into issues trying to write to the same Excel file in parallel.)
So, for example, you might have tables:
run_details with columns id, parm1, parm2 and parm3 (with proper column names given your actual parameters and some unique ID generated for each run)
output_demand with columns run_id, sim_time_hrs and demand_value (if, say, you're storing some demand value each hour of simulated time) where run_id cross-references the run's ID in run_details
(There is extra complexity in how you could allocate a unique run ID and how and when you write to/clear those tables, but I'm just presenting the core design. You can also get round the need-serial-execution point by programmatically controlling when you export to Excel, rather than using the built-in "Export tables at the end of model execution" capability, but that's also more complicated.)

data processing of Dymola's result during simulation

I am working on a complex Modelica model that contains a large set of data, and I need the simulation to keep going until I terminate the simulation process, maybe even for days, so the .mat file could get very large, I got trouble with how to do data processing. So I'd like to ask if there are any methods that allow me to
output the data I need after a fixed time step during simulation, but not using the .mat file after simulation. I am considering using Modelica.Utilities.Stream.Print` function to print the data I need into a CSV file, but I have to write a huge amount of code that prints every variable I need, so I think there should be a better solution.
delete the .mat file during a fixed time step, so the .mat file stored on my PC wouldn't get too large, and don't affect the normal simulation of Dymola.
Long time ago I wrote a small C-program that runs the executable of Dymola with two threads. One of them is responsible for terminating the whole simulation after exceeding an input time limit. I used the executable of this C-program within the standard given mfiles from Dymola. I think with some hacking capabilities, one would be able to conduct the mentioned requirements.
Have a look at https://github.com/Mathemodica/dymmat however I need to warn that the associated mfiles were for particular type of models and the software is not maintained since long time. However, the idea of the C-program would be reproducible.
I didn't fully test this, so please think of this more like "source of inspiration" than a full answer:
In Section "4.3.6 Saving periodic snapshots during simulation" of the Dymola 2021 Release Notes you'll find a description to do the following:
The simulator can be instructed to print the simulation result file “dsfinal.txt” snapshots during simulation.
This can be done periodically using the Simulation Setup options "Complete result snapshots", but I think for your case it could be more useful to trigger it from the model using the function Dymola.Simulation.TriggerResultSnapshot(). A simple example is given as well:
when x > 0 then
Dymola.Simulation.TriggerResultSnapshot();
end when;
Also one property of this function could help, as it by default creates multiple files without overwriting them:
By default, a time stamp is added to the snapshot file name, e.g.: “dsfinal_0.1.txt”.
The format of the created dsfinal_[TIMESTAMP].txt is a bit overwhelming at first, as it contains all information for initializing the model, but there should be everything you need...
So some effort is shifted to the post processing, as you will likely need to read multiple files, but I think this is an acceptable trade-off.

Writing different experiment output run to different cells in a sheet (Excel file)

I am simultaneously running a model with different input values and it is producing different output on each run. I am trying to create a code that will get anylogic to wright each experiment output run in a different cell in excel sheet i.e. throughput Vs. Time. I am using dataset. Wondering If there is any script or hint can help in solving the issue?
Currently I am using the following commands. They keep overwriting the output using the same cells.
Out_excelFile1.setCellValue("Sink1 Out",2,2,2);
Out_excelFile1.writeDataSet(Sink1_D,2,3,2);
Best if you actually use the build-in database for outputs and only write to Excel at the end of all runs, tbh.
But in your case, you need to change the row number by your replication/iteration number. Use getCurrentIteration() or getCurrentReplication() in your "after simulation run" or "after replication" or "after iteration" experiment code sections to get this right.
Then, it would look something like Out_excelFile1.setCellValue("Sink1 Out",2,getCurrentIteration(),2);
(Details depend on your actual implementation, check the help for further info on replications, iterations and those functions)

Keeping track of refreshes in Crystal Reports 2008

I am curious to know if there is a way to tell if a report has been printed or ran. For example, the user enters in a inspectionnumber and hits apply and then clicks print and then prints the report. Can i know if the report has been printed? is there a way to use local variables to track that, some sort of loop?
I've never tested this, but here's a theory you can try.
In your Database Expert, go to your Current Connections and Add Command. Use this to write up a SQL query to save the usage data to a table in your data source (If your data source is read only, just add a delimited text file as an additional data source and output your usage data to that instead.)
The best example I have of this is # http://www.scribd.com/doc/2190438/20-Secrets-of-Crystal-Reports. On page 39, you'll see a method for creating a table of contents that more or less uses this method.