Picture as graph background?

[Travis]

Is there a way to have a picture be the background a line graph? I'm indifferent to how: this could either be done by modifying the graph defaults or by some clever combination of comments and graphs in a view. Thoughts? I can't seem to make it work.

Thanks,
TF

[bob@vensim.com]

An interesting notion. I can't think of any way to do this inside of Vensim - though you could export the graph to another program like PhotoShop and do the combination there. You could even bring the combination back into Vensim as a comment but it would be static.

[Travis]

Yes, static wouldn't be too useful. Just to state what I was thinking, I'm interested in having a background be a "reference mode" that wouldn't change. The easiest way to explain it is to image a bar chart with 5 vertical bars as the background. Vensim would the simulate and draw a horizontal line that would intersect the bars, telling the user how they performed. It would be important that this works in SyntheSim.

Is there a way to make comments on top or behind other diagram objects? I can't seem to figure out Vensim's object ordering.

[bob@vensim.com]

I would recommend that you create a custom bar graph with a reference run displayed so that what people see is the current run relative to the reference. You have some control over labeling so that can be used to indicate clearly which is which. Alternatively you could create model variables for relative performance (eg using GET VDF DATA) and display those with 0 (or 100 or any number) being the just as good as point.

You can control drawing order on a sketch with the push to background button on the bottom toolbar but embedded graphs are always on top of all other sketch objects and SyntheSim drawing will override order relative to non displayed elements so this won't really help for what you want to do.