ATTENTION

This FlexSim Community Forum is read-only. Please post any new questions, ideas, or discussions to our new community (we call it Answers) at https://answers.flexsim.com/. Our new Question & Answer site brings a modern, mobile-friendly interface and more focus on getting answers quickly. There are a few differences between how our new Q&A community works vs. a classic, threaded-conversation-style forum like the one below, so be sure to read our Answers Best Practices.


flexsim.com

Go Back   FlexSim Community Forum > FlexSim Software > Q&A
Downloads

Q&A Using Flexsim and building models

  #1  
Old 04-29-2010
Tom David's Avatar
Tom David Tom David is offline
Flexsim User
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany
Posts: 430
Downloads: 157
Uploads: 47
Thanks: 486
Thanked 450 Times in 233 Posts
Rep Power: 520
Tom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant futureTom David has a brilliant future
Default Lowest performance item?

I am searching for an item, which uses the lowest performance for the hardware.

I know, that an item with less nodes uses less performance.
I know, that an item without a shape uses less performance.

If I have a look into the flowitem bin in v5, I would think, that the Circle is the item to choose.
This item hast no 3D Shape and is just visualized by a bitmap (*.png).
The item has only 7 nodes on the first level.
What I do not like about the Circle is the billboard functionality.


I need an item which is visual, but this can only be a small line (like |).
The item did not need to change the color (black is fine).
I do not need to change the size of the item, so it can be fix (like x = 0.1 y = 1 and z = 0.01).
I do not need an item type (maybe yes).
I need some information (labels?), which are individual information for each item (around 5 information).
I do not want billboard functionality. It is enough, if the item (line) is just on the object, e.g. a conveyor.
In this sense the item is just a carrier of information and fires triggers. But there will be thousands of these items in the model which I need to carry the individual information. I do not know how many items will be in the system at the same time.

Yes, I will recycle the items.

So my questions are:
How to create such a low performance item?
Which nodes are necessary on the item for Flexsim to work properly?

I tried to make the bitmap (*.png) for this item based on the Circle.png but was not successful.
Like said, I just like to have a black line, which is placed on the objects (e.g. conveyor).

If I use a Plane as a base for my item, it is easy to make, but unfortunately has a 3D-Shape.

One additional idea I have, but I am not sure if this is a good idea, is to store the five individual information not on the item (labels) itself, but in a Global Array.
Maybe to use the item type or the name (value) as a Pointer which points to the Global Arrays. Different Global Arrays hold the needed five information.
This way prevents to have the five label nodes on the item.

I appreciate any hint and help.
__________________
tom the (A)tom: "We have solved our problems ... now we have to fight the solutions."
The Following User Says Thank You to Tom David For This Useful Post:
arunkrmahadeva (04-18-2016)
  #2  
Old 04-29-2010
Steven Hamoen's Avatar
Steven Hamoen Steven Hamoen is offline
Talumis, Flexsim Distributor, The Netherlands
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Soest, NL
Posts: 854
Downloads: 43
Uploads: 0
Thanks: 391
Thanked 661 Times in 379 Posts
Rep Power: 684
Steven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Hamoen has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Tom,

This post:
http://www.flexsim.com/community/for...read.php?t=209

tells you the minimum requirement of an flowitem. Maybe it is a start.

Steven
  #3  
Old 04-29-2010
Anthony Johnson's Avatar
Anthony Johnson Anthony Johnson is offline
Manager of Product Development
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 440
Downloads: 86
Uploads: 4
Thanks: 171
Thanked 899 Times in 288 Posts
Rep Power: 735
Anthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond reputeAnthony Johnson has a reputation beyond repute
Default

My advice is that you might not want to worry so much about getting the absolute most optimized item. If you're recycling, then it seems to me that it's not that much of an issue to minimize the data of the item, because the max number of items you'll need to create is the maximum WIP, and that's very likely a small number compared to the total throughput of the model.

If you're looking to optimize the refresh rate, then the best option is to override Flexsim's drawing of the individual items altogether. In some of our refresh rate tests we've found that just doing the setup for drawing one object takes orders of magnitude longer than drawing the shape, even for a pretty complex shape. This is because 1 - the drawing of the shape is optimized into a display list, which is like a compiled drawing procedure stored in the graphics card, so it's very fast, and 2 - because Flexsim's drawing of an object is so flexible, i.e. it offers so many different options, just the amount of time to read all of the options, and, more importantly, to set up the OpenGL state appropriately, takes a lot more time than just drawing the object. So what I would do is toggle all of the objects in your model that will hold items to hide their content. This turns off all drawing for items inside those objects. Then have one object in your model that is the "item drawer". In that object, you write an ondraw trigger that goes through all the objects in the model, and draws the lines for those items. You should maximize the number of lines that are drawn between a glBegin() and a glEnd().

If you're trying to maximize for run speed, then you might want to look at the total number of events fired per item that goes through the model. How many steps (or in other words, events) does an item have to go through to get from model start to model finish? If the ratio (Max WIP) / (avg nr. events per item * total throughput) is very small, then item creation time is going to be a very small portion of the total time to run the model, so you might want to instead concentrate on minimizing the average number of events per item from start to finish.

Another thing you might look at optimizing is event list size. If the event list becomes very large, then sorting becomes a non-trivial operation, so your runspeed can suffer.

Anyway, there's a few things you might want to think about.

Last edited by Anthony Johnson; 04-29-2010 at 02:58 PM.
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Anthony Johnson For This Useful Post:
Tom David (04-29-2010)


Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Experimenter: Performance Measures Gavin Douglas Q&A 9 12-16-2010 02:45 PM
Random pick item KelvinHo Q&A 3 09-03-2009 08:19 AM
Performance problems in big model Lydia Franck Q&A 6 07-01-2009 07:27 AM
Flexsim running performance vs Automode performance... syseo Marketing and Sales Information 6 06-10-2009 08:35 PM
TaskExecuter should unload more then one item...How? TilmanDHL Tips and Tricks 1 01-28-2009 01:54 AM


All times are GMT -6.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2020, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright 1993-2018 FlexSim Software Products, Inc.