What is new in 20-sim 5.0?

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What is new in 20-sim 5.0?

20-sim 5.0 has been updated with many small improvements and three large additions:

1.	the extension of the 3D Mechanics Editor to allow parametric design;

2.	a new tool called the Scenario Manager to define and run simulations automatically;

3.	a new and faster simulation engine that generates its the simulation instructions based on the supported CPU instruction set (e.g. prefer AVX2 instructions when supported).

General

1.	A brand new tool, the Scenario Manager, is added to 20-sim. With this tool you can perform tasks with 20-sim models automatically. This allows you to do all kinds of tasks automatically such as test automation.

Editor

1.	At the right of the Equation Editor, the Variables Pane shows the actual parameter and variable values during a simulation.

2.	The display of connections between submodels has been improved.

3.	Snap to grid when zooming in has been improved in the Editor and Icon Editor.

4.	The terminals scale with the zooming in the Editor and Icon Editor.

5.	The search box searches the Help Files and shows the results in the Find tab.

6.	You can now update the interface or update the icon of all implementations all at once and make them equal to the current implementation.

7.	Encrypted models are shown with a lock in the models tree. You can now encrypt and decrypt models with a password.

8.	You can copy variables to clipboard.

9.	The Undo Buffer Memory Size can be increased.

10.	The Globals tab will now show errors highlighted.

Simulator

1.	Add, copy, paste and delete plots and curves in the simulator tree.

2.	Quick copy of plots and curves using the left mouse key and the Ctrl-key.

3.	Parameters and variables can be limited in range or made read-only. These limits are shown in the Attributes column in the Parameters Editor and Variables Chooser.

New models created in 20-sim 5.0 will automatically select the fastest processor instruction set available (typically AVX2 on recent CPU's). For models that were created in an earlier version of 20-sim, you can changes the preferred CPU architecture in the Model Properties dialog on the Simulator tab.

Language

1.	Parameters of Variables can be limited in range using annotations.

2.	Integers can be entered and displayed in decimal, binary or hexadecimal formats.

3.	The keyword favorite can be added to parameters and variables.

4.	You can limit the scope of global parameters and variables by using the keyword oneup.

Library

The hydraulics library has been upgraded with a fluid properties component. In previous versions of 20-sim, the hydraulic fluid properties (e.g. bulk modulus, viscosity) were stored in every component. In the new library the fluid properties are stored in the Fluid Properties component. This means that you only have to insert the Fluid Properties component and all fluid properties are defined automatically in each other library component that you use.

2.	The Logical Library has been extended with Real and Boolean blocks. The And, Nand, Nor, Or and Xor blocks now have up to 9 inputs.

Code Generation

1.	Visual Studio 2022 build support to the code generation templates added.

2.	The Arduino code generation template now generates values as float (32-bit) instead of double (64-bit) values to save memory on small Arduino targets.

3D Mechanics Editor

1.	Parametric Modeling: Enter the mass, inertia and geometry with parametric expressions. This allows you to change you 3D Mechanics model before a simulation, by simply changing parameters.

2.	Basic scripting support added (see below)

Scripting

1.	New functions added:

a.	to insert a submodel from file;

b.	for adding / removing ports on a submodel;

c.	to create connections between ports;

d.	to import a 3D scenery (e.g. exported by the 3D mechanics editor);

e.	to save an encrypted model

2.	3D Mechanics editor: it is now also possible to start the 3D Mechanics Editor from Python and to open a 3D mechanics model, change design parameters and export it to 20-sim.

Bug-fixes and Improvements

In addition to the above mentioned items, 20-sim 5.0 received more than 180 bug-fixes and minor improvements since 20-sim 4.8.4. See the 20-sim website for the full list of changes.

Additional

The number of variables and equations for the Personal version of 20-sim is limited to a maximum of 200.