Help with Custom Graph, Table, or Report & Subscripts

[jmcfarland]

Hi everyone,

I could use some help to creating a stacked column graph in Vensim OR data table that I could readily paste into excel. I am modeling the changes in the costs for 17 technologies for electric power generation over 100 years. I want to produce a column graph showing the technology cost (y-axis) vs. technology (x-axis) for a single time (e.g., t=1, 25, 50, OR 100). The column for each technology would break-out the cost components into categories such as capital, O&M, fuel, other.

In other words, I have the variable cost indexed by technology and cost component.
cost[Tech, CostComp]

Example Cost Table:
Tech1 Tech2 ... TechN
Capital 5 10
O&M 2 3
Fuel 4 2
Other 2 1

I have not this issue addressed in the help files of Vensim DSS 5.11 nor in the forum. I searched for several permutations of custom graphs, tables and reports.

Based on what I read in Chapter 15 of the reference manual, customization and modification of the .vgd file is needed. Here are the issues and questions I have for the three approaches (graph, table, and report):

Custom Bar Graph - The examples in Ch 15 show unstacked bar graphs. Can the cost components be stacked? If so, how?

Custom Table - I can produce a single row of cost components over a column of technology types, but cannot generate a table with multiple rows indexed by a variable other than time.
Is it possible to index the table by a subscript instead of time?

Custom Report - This seems like a workable, but slightly unpleasant option. I have two issues with this option. First, I do not know how to continue long lines of code in a .vgd file onto the next line. Using the backslash "\" at the end of the line appears to comment out the line. Sample code below works for 2 technologies, but I have 17 and the report is only recognizing about 7 or 8 in a single line of text. Second, I get the following error with the code below: "Got zero 0 but expected 4 variable descriptors." The report code still works, but the fact that I am getting an error suggests that something is wrong.

Report code
:REPORT Cost
:VAR capital portion[tech1]@10
:VAR fixed om portion[tech1]@10
:VAR capital portion[tech2]@10
:VAR fixed om portion[tech2]@10
Capital \real LCOE capital portion[tech1]/ \real LCOE capital portion[tech2]/
OM \real LCOE fixed om portion[tech1]/ \real LCOE fixed om portion[tech2]/
:END-OF-REPORT

Report Output
Capital 14.65 35.70
OM 1.931 3.918


Thanks for the help.

best,
Jim

[Administrator]

I would just take the normal table output, paste into a worksheet in Excel and then use VLOOKUP/HLOOKUP from another sheet on the Vensim numbers to create the graph.

Vensim does not support stacked bars (unless someone tells me otherwise).

[tomfid]

Also, if you right-click the Table tool, and check the "2d subscripting" option, you can generate a table across subscript elements rather than over time.

You could then select cost[Tech, CostComp] and generate a table of the entire contents of the array at any point in time that you choose. That's probably the easiest approach.

Tom