Continuous system simulation in Python

[Sébastien Boisgérault]

Nicolas,

I am aware of some shortcomings and design flaws of Simulink,
especially in the code generation area. I am interested by
your paper nonetheless, please send me copy.

However, Simulink is used by many people on a day-to-day basis
in the context of big, industrial projects. The claim that it
is "next to unusable" is, in my book, an overstatement ...

Scicos is not perfect either but you can hardly say that is
is a simple clone of Simulink. No time and space to go into
the details ...

Obviously, the python community is very dynamic, but how much
support will you get in the very specific topic of continuous
time systems simulation ?

IMHO, an hybrid approach, such as the development of bridge
to include Python components into Simulink/Scicos/Ptolemy/
Modelica/pick_your_favorite_simulator may grant you more
interest from the simulation community.

Cheers,

SB



Nicolas Pernetty wrote:
> Simulink is well fitted for small simulators, but when you run into big
> projects, I find many shortcomings appears which made the whole thing
> next to unusable for our kind of projects.
> That's why I'm interested in Python by the way, it is not a simple clone
> like Scilab/Scicos. It is a real language which bring its own
> advantages, and its own shortcomings, which I find well suited for our
> activity.
>
> If you want, I can send you a paper I wrote last year, detailing all
> Simulink shortcomings. I doubt that this mailing list is interested in
> such things...(and it's in French...).
> Concerning Scilab/Scicos, I'm not really interested in a technology
> primarily developed (INRIA and ENSPC) and used by France. Python and all
> its libraries and communities are so much more dynamic !
> And also I've heard that Scilab was developed in Fortran in a way which
> make it rigid and that the sources are poorly documented, not a good
> sign for an open source software (and Scilab isn't 'Free' for the FSF).
>
> Regards,
>
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 8 Oct 2005 11:06:25 -0700, "Sébastien Boisgérault"
> <Sebastien.Boisgerault at gmail.com> wrote :
>
> >
> > Simulink is a framework widely used by the control engineers ...
> > It is not *perfect* but the ODEs piece is probably the best
> > part of the simulator. Why were you not convinced ?
> >
> > You may also have a look at Scicos and Ptolemy II. These
> > simulators are open-source ... but not based on Python.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > SB
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Nicolas Pernetty a écrit :
> >
> > > Hello Phil,
> > >
> > > Yes I have considered Octave. In fact I'm already using Matlab and
> > > decided to 'reject' it for Python + Numeric/numarray + SciPy because
> > > I think you could do more in Python and in more simple ways.
> > >
> > > Problem is that neither Octave, Matlab and Python offer today a
> > > framework to build continuous system simulator (in fact Matlab with
> > > Simulink and SimMechanics, do propose, but I was not convinced at
> > > all).
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> > >
> > > On 7 Oct 2005 11:00:54 -0700, phil_nospam_schmidt at yahoo.com wrote :
> > >
> > > > Nicholas,
> > > >
> > > > Have you looked at Octave? It is not Python, but I believe it can
> > > > talk to Python.
> > > > Octave is comparable to Matlab for many things, including having
> > > > ODE solvers. I have successfully used it to model and simulate
> > > > simple systems. Complex system would be easy to model as well,
> > > > provided that you model your dynamic elements with (systems of)
> > > > differential equations.
> > > >
> >