Specific algorithms allow you to use one or more start designs. In Sensitivity or Robustness algorithms, you can add previous set of samples to new samples. In optimization algorithms, you can use start designs directly as starting points for the algorithm.
optiSLang presents designs in a table that contains the design ID, information about the status, and the value for each parameter. If available, responses and criteria are also shown.
Displayed float values are formatted using options provided in the Table/Tree Views section of the optiSLang configuration settings.
To add start designs:
On the Scenery pane, double-click the system and switch to the Start designs tab.
Select one of the following options from the multi-action button below the start designs table:
: Adds an empty design as a row in the design table. Type the values for each parameter in the specific cells.
: Adds a copy of the reference design to the design table.
: Opens a dialog with a list of all systems and its corresponding result designs. Select a single design or multi-select several designs and click to copy them to the design table.
The following filters for existing systems are available:
Show all systems (no filtering is applied)
Has result designs (default)
Has parameters
Has criteria
Name contains: (shows only systems, whose names contain the specified string)
: Opens a dialog to browse for one of the following files.
File Description *.bin Opening this file type opens another dialog with a list of all designs found in the file. Select one or more items from the list.
*.omdb *.xlsx *.xls *.ods *.json *.csv When opening the file, select the delimiters (comma, semicolon, tab, or space), then select the designs. Data is only imported for available parameter and responses.
If the file was created by a different tool than the Design Export node, there are some requirements for the format to import designs again. Files that were created with the optiSLang postprocessing must be adapted before importing them into the design table in optiSLang.
Ensure the file meets the following requirements:
Except for the first line with design specific names there should not be any other text.
The design ID is recognized only if the header of the first column is named #, otherwise the first column is interpreted as data.
Valid separators are tabs, commas, semicolons, spaces, or user defined characters.
Each data line must be complete corresponding to the header. Incomplete or overfull lines are ignored.
A line must not end with a separator character.
Create sampling: Opens a sampling dialog to create a requested number of designs with a specific method.
If you import designs that have design IDs used by any current start design, select one of the following options:
Update existing: Updates existing start designs with the values of start designs with matching IDs. Any non-matching design is appended to the list.
Discard duplicates: Appends designs without matching IDs to the list and skips designs with matching IDs.
Append: Adds the imported designs to the end of the current start design list and alters the design IDs so they are consecutive.
Replace : Replaces the current start designs with the imported designs.
Append preserving original ids: Adds the imported designs to the end of the current start design list and preserves the imported design IDs, even if they are duplicated.
To remove designs from the table:
In the design table, click a design to highlight it, or use the Shift and Ctrl keys to select multiple designs.
From the multi-selection button, select or right-click the table and select from the context menu.
To synchronizes the criteria defined on the Criteria tab to the start designs, from the multi-selection button, select .
Start design criteria are evaluated as much as possible. Input constraints can be evaluated directly while constraints that depend on responses can only be evaluated if response values are available in the start design. Otherwise they are ignored.
To display a postprocessing monitoring log for at least four start designs, from the multi-selection button select .
The corresponding algorithm_start_designs.bin bin file or the algorithm_start_designs.omdb optiSLang monitoring database file is stored within the working directory.
Note: Solving or resolving start designs is optional and can be enabled/disabled on the Other tab.