Building Workflows

Lecture 7

L7.2

Overview
Model Assembly Techniques
Data Flow vs Process Flow
Publishing to Library
Workshop

Introduction to Isight

L7.3

The Library
Multiple libraries
Local
Corporate

Refresh library
view

Across organizations
Save selected item to a
local file

Select a local file to

publish to the library

Delete item(s) or
version(s)

Introduction to Isight

Put selected item(s) onto your component

palette

L7.4

Model Assembly : Library Access

Find components in the Library to use in building models

Access the Library from Toolbar or Palette buttons

Browse the entire Library or Search

the contents

Add the selected component(s) to

Palette

Note: Library GUI also accessible as a

separate application from library.bat
Isight
library.bat
Introduction to Isight

L7.5

Model Assembly: Component Properties

Access from Component Toolbar or right-clickViewProperties

Execution Tab

Delay before execution

Timeout limit for execution ( zero indicates no limit)

Keep execution directory

Number of execution retries

Runtime directory (only applicable with Isight in standalone)

Isight

Details Tab

Version and library information

Affinities Tab

Host, OS, etc execution requirements

Only applicable when using Isight with Fiper

Fiper

Icon and Description Tabs

Introduction to Isight

L7.6

Model Assembly: Building the Workflow

Dragging Components from the

Palette
Drop onto an existing workflow line to
insert Component into that location of the
workflow

Drop into open (interior) space to

leave out of workflow if desired

Create workflow links with the

Canvas toolbar if desired

Delete workflow link by selecting

it and hitting Delete key (or right
click menu)

Components are automatically positioned in the workflow

Introduction to Isight

L7.7

Model Assembly: Hierarchical Models

Use process components to create multiple levels within your model

Model Explorer show tree

structure

Switch between full-model and

single-level views

Zoom controls

Airplane View, which shows

a thumbnail of entire model
layout

The Process Components

right-click menu allows user to
Collapse/Expand its sub-tree

Introduction to Isight

L7.8

Model Assembly: Conditional Workflow

Create branches in the workflow and place conditions on when various branches should be executed

Draw workflow link

Select a link and

right-click Edit Condition

Introduction to Isight

L7.9

Model Assembly: Encapsulation

Inserting a new level into a model is called encapsulating

EditEncapsulate or Right-clickEncapsulate

Introduction to Isight

L7.10

Model Assembly: Parameters

The Components in a workflow communicate with each other by passing data through Isight parameters

A Parameter is defined by its attributes:

Name any string of characters not to include [, ] or .

,.

Mode input, output, in/out, or local

/,

Structure scalar, array, or aggregate

Type real, integer, string, boolean, file, or user-defined (via a datatype plugin)

Arrays of up to four dimensions are supported

Nested Aggregates are supported

Parameters are NOT global (each component has its own set of parameters)

Introduction to Isight

L7.11

Model Assembly: Parameters Tab

Each Component has its own Parameters tab for managing the Isight parameters used within the
Component

Parameters can be
sorted, grouped and
filtered

Right-click Copy/Paste
between Components

Introduction to Isight

View in separate window

L7.12

Model Assembly: Parameter Mapping

To pass data from one component to another, parameters in one must

be mapped to parameters in another

View and
edit mappings on the
Mapping tab

Isight will auto-map parameters

with the same name and type
Isight

Manually map by dragging from

one parameter to another

Drag a parameter to a component

to have it created and mapped

Introduction to Isight

L7.13

Model Assembly: Dataflow

Workflow only tells what to run and when to run it

Dataflow tells what data to pass among components

Double-click any line to view the

specific parameter mappings

Shows number of parameters

being passed

Node indicates a
turn in dataflow

Introduction to Isight

L7.14

Model Assembly: Model Validation

Isight has a built-in validation framework to Isight

ensure that the model you develop is valid-

advise/warn you of aspects of your model that do not follow convention

provide Components a way to validate their configurations

automatically navigate to source of error and fix it

Turn off if desired

Shows most severe

validation message

Shows total number and

launches dialog to view all

Introduction to Isight

L7.15

Model Assembly: Publishing

Select File Publish to publish the entire model

Select a component and right-click Publish to publish it

Provide a full name for where to store

it in the Library (. indicates a
directory separator)

Provide attributes for

easy search capability

Introduction to Isight

L7.16

Process Workflow Complexity

Workflows can be
simple and contain
only one or two
components and a
single Design Driver

Workflows can also be complex

with many components and
nested Design Drivers

Introduction to Isight

Workshop Problem

L7.18

Workshops 6-11: Aircraft Takeoff Design Problem

611

Workshops 6 through 11 are based on an aircraft takeoff design problem.

611

Workshop overview-

Design requirements

Customer needs to know the range of a new aircraft design

Analyzing range requires

Some aero calculations

An engine simulation

A weights analysis

Some performance calculations

To analyze this problem, we will use

A MATLAB script for aero

Matlab

A custom simulation code to simulate the engine

An approximation model of a weights analysis

An Excel Spreadsheet for the performance computation

excel

Introduction to Isight

L7.19

Workshop: Building Workflows

You may need to access the

library to add components to
your palette

Create a workflow like the screenshot below and save as:

C:\iSIGHT-FD Training\Labs\Integration Workflow\MyWorkflow.zmf

You will need to create

workflow lines for parallel
flow

You will need to use

component properties to
rename the components

Do not bother to configure

any components

Introduction to Isight