Ventana software support forum

Hi folks,

Hopefully some of you that are familiar with MATLAB and have used the tool Simulink can help me to answer this question:

If MATLAB have many tools incorporated (genetic algorithms, neural networks, etc) and you can model and simulate differential equations similar to Vensim THEN What is the advantage of modeling in Vensim and interfacing with MATLAB to use its tools instead of just modeling everything in MATLAB?

Why select Vensim as a modeling tool instead of MATLAB-Simulink?

Thanks a lot

[Edited on 11-14-2006 by alfonss]

hi

The solution is to try Vensim or to explain closely what kind of problems you are trying to solve.
Probably both have their advantages and drawbacks,
I do not know simulink, but do you have reality checks implemented in simulink? Serions modeling without such a tool seems difficult to me. You must compare all the features of both packages and compare them to your needs preferably expressed qualitatively without any preconceived idea about the way the problem may be quantified.
Regards.
JJ

there are some people who interconnect Vensim with programs like Matlab though I don't think any of them participate in this forum. the motivation for doing this is to get access to some of the extensible programming interfaces in the other packages (for example LP solvers) but contain the model in the Vensim language to ease analysis and experimentation.

Whether or not that is a good idea really depends on the model. If you are dealing with relatively small and well understood dynamic models, such as physical or electronic systems, where the equations are pretty much definable from first principles then you are probably better off staying in an envrionment you already know. If the problems require less well defined models were lots of experimentation is called for Vensim is likely to be helpful.