Scripting Workshop

What is licensed to users of Infolytica products under the name "Scripting" is an automation interface that goes far beyond what is normally known as scripting. In the legacy programs, i.e. pre-Windows, scripting is meant to be a mechanism for creating macros and the ability to run a program in batch mode. In these (legacy) programs, there is a language implemented by the vendor of the program for creating macros that is not an industry standard programming language.

The scripting in Infolytica products is implemented through the Microsoft automation mechanism and uses the Active-X technology. The goal of scripting in Infolytica products is to provide an extensible, industry-standard tool:

• to automate modeling, solving, and post-processing tasks
• to customize the system to meet user requirements
• to enable a direct link between Infolytica products and any other Active-X compliant software

Scripting can thus be used for optimization, customization and interoperability.

This mechanism allows a user to implement programs in any of the standard languages, e.g. Visual Basic, Java, C/C++, etc. that can interact with the Infolytica products. There are already a number of programs in the market that are Active X-compliant and hence can interact with the Infolytica products. Among them, are Microsoft^® Office, MATLAB^®, Mathcad^® and AutoCAD^®, just to name a few.

In brief, the automation interface available in the Infolytica products allows the user to implement the following:

• Customization
  Creating a high level interface for the design and analysis of a specific device, e.g. a brushless DC motor.
• Linking to other programs
  Linking to other tools allows complementary functionality.
• An example would be a link to a word processor for automatic report generation.
• Another example would be a link to a spreadsheet program to do some of the calculations in the spreadsheet.
• The user may wish to query the data in the Infolytica databases to transfer to another simulation program for multi-physics analysis.
• The user may link the Infolytica products with standard optimization routines of a standard math simulation tool.
• Macros
  To automate the steps involved in a repetitive task, e.g. creation of the geometry or post-processing of results.

The objective of this workshop is to explore the different ways scripting may be used to simplify your work. As a result of the day's exercise, the workshop attendees will walk away with a sample script for automatic report generation and a few other examples.