Simulators organize millions of calculations to model complex systems
The individual calculations that activate your system may be simple, but if there are so many and all of them interact with each other - then you may need a simulator.
Raven's Point has developed many simulators for clients.
Material Flow Modeling simulates the movement of thousands of interacting particles in three dimension. A typical application would be gravel moving on a conveyor belt,then falling down a chute:
The challenge is to simulate the movement of many thousand particles through three dimensional space fast enough to produce worthwhile results.
DEMON ( Discrete Element Modeling of Objects on a coNveyor ) is a library of highly optimized parallel code that takes advantage of modern multi-core CPUs to keep track of the particles. An API is provided which allows different implementations of particle interaction models to be plugged in and simulated in action.
Click on image to animate particle motion.
The classic simulator. Transactions move between nodes where they are re-routed or delayed. The transactions can carry data and node behaviour which can be modified using any language or script The design priority was flexibility.
A process plant simulator. The physical principals of material flowing through components such as pipes, valves, pumps are modeled and combined. The design priority was efficiency.
A GUI used to create the layout, set parameters and view results of the discrete event or pocess flow simulations.
A mine simulator. Stockpiles of ore are selected to ensure output grade. Uses Linear Programming technique. Piran is the patron saint of Cornish tin miners.
Optimise the flow of oil through a network of pipes. Uses Linear Programming technique.
Optimize a poker playing robot by simulation of millions of games ( 3,500 complete ten player games per second on a 2.5GHz laptop ) while the robot 'evolves' using the principals of Darwinian survival of the fittest.