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The Simscape Editing Mode (SEM) functionality is implemented for corporate customers who perform physical modeling and simulation using Simscape and its vertical products: SimDriveline, SimHydraulics, and SimMechanics. It allows you to open, simulate, and save models that contain blocks from vertical products in Restricted mode, without checking out vertical product licenses, as long as the products are installed on your machine. It is intended to provide an economical way to distribute simulation models throughout a team or organization using concurrent licenses.
Note The SEM functionality requires the ability to share licenses among a group of users. Therefore, it is available only with concurrent licenses, which is the only license type at The MathWorks where a license is not tied to a particular workstation. The SEM functionality is not supported for other license types. |
The Simscape Editing Mode functionality supports widespread use of Physical Modeling products throughout an engineering organization by making it economical for one user to develop a model and provide it to many other users.
Specifically, this feature allows a user, model developer, to build a model that uses Simscape and one or more vertical products and share that model with other users, model users. When building the model in Full mode, the model developer must have a Simscape license and the vertical product licenses for all the blocks in the model. For example, if a model combines Simscape, SimHydraulics, and SimDriveline blocks, the model developer needs to check out licenses for all three products to work with it in Full mode. Once the model is built, model users need only to check out a Simscape license to simulate the model and fine-tune its parameters in Restricted mode. As long as no structural changes are made to the model, model users can work in Restricted mode and do not need to check out vertical product licenses.
Another workflow lets multiple users, who all have Simscape licenses, share a small number of vertical product licenses by working mostly in Restricted mode, and temporarily switching models to Full mode only when they need to perform a specific design task that requires being in Full mode.
Note The MathWorks recommends that you save all the models in Full mode before upgrading to a new version of Simulink or Simscape. If you have saved a model in Restricted mode and, upon upgrading to a new product version, open the model and it does not run, switch it to Full mode and save. You can then again switch to Restricted mode and work without problem. |
When your model is open in Restricted mode, you can:
Simulate the model.
Inspect parameters.
Change certain block parameters. In general, you can change numerical parameter values, but cannot change the block parameterization options. See the block reference pages for specifics.
Generate code.
Make data logging or visualization changes.
Add or delete regular Simulink blocks (such as sources or scopes) and appropriate connections.
For other types of changes, listed in the following section, your model has to be in Full mode. Some of these disallowed changes are impossible to make in Restricted mode (for example, Restricted parameters are grayed out in block dialog boxes). Other changes, like changing the physical topology of a model, are not explicitly disallowed, but if you make these changes in Restricted mode, Simscape will issue an error message when you try to run, compile, or save such a model.
You need to open a model in Full mode if you need to do any of the following:
Add or delete Physical Modeling blocks (that is, Simscape blocks or blocks from the vertical product libraries).
Make or break Physical connections (between Conserving or Physical Signal ports).
Change the types of signals going into actuators or out of sensors (for example, from velocity to torque).
Change configuration parameters.
Change block parameterization options and other restricted parameters.
Change physical units of parameters.
The following flow chart shows what happens when you switch between modes.
New models are always created in Full mode. You can then either save the model in Full mode, or switch to Restricted mode and save the model in Restricted mode.
When you load an existing model, Simscape checks whether it has been saved in Full or Restricted mode.
If the model has been saved in Restricted mode, it opens in Restricted mode.
If the model has been saved in Full mode, Simscape checks whether all the vertical product licenses for this model are available and, if so, opens it in Full mode. If a vertical product license is not available, Simscape issues an error message and opens the model in Restricted mode. See also Example with Multiple Vertical Products.
Note You can set a Simulink preference to specify that the models are always to open in Restricted mode, regardless of the way they have been saved. |
When a model is open, you can transition it between Full and Restricted modes at any time, in either direction:
When you try to switch from Restricted to Full mode, Simscape checks whether all the vertical product licenses for this model are available. If a vertical product license is not available, Simscape issues an error message and the model stays in Restricted mode. See also Example with Multiple Vertical Products.
No checks are performed when switching from Full to Restricted mode.
Note If a vertical product license has been checked out to open a model in Full mode, it remains checked out for the remainder of the MATLAB session. Switching to Restricted mode does not immediately return the license. |
When you try to open a model in Full mode or to switch from Restricted to Full mode, Simscape scans the model and attempts to check out the required vertical product licenses as it encounters them in the model. If a license is not available, Simscape issues an error message and the model stays in Restricted mode. The licenses are checked out sequentially. As a result, if a model uses blocks from multiple vertical products, some of the vertical product licenses may have already been checked out by the time Simscape encounters an unavailable license. In this case, these vertical product licenses stay checked out until you quit the MATLAB session, even though the model is in Restricted mode.
For example, consider a model that uses blocks from SimHydraulics and SimDriveline libraries, but the user who tries to open it has only the SimDriveline license available. It may happen that Simscape checks out a SimDriveline license first, and then tries to check out a SimHydraulics license, which is not available. Simscape then issues an error message and opens the model in Restricted mode, but the SimDriveline license stays checked out until the end of the MATLAB session.
This section describes the specifics of working with block libraries while using the Editing Mode functionality. These rules are applicable to any physical modeling blocks, that is, blocks from all Simscape libraries, including the vertical products. In general, you need to work in Full mode when you modify a library block. However, when you open a model that references the modified block, you may work in Restricted mode, under certain conditions. The following summary details the Editing Mode rules for modifying and using library blocks:
To add physical modeling blocks to a library block, you need to work in Full mode.
If this library block had not previously contained physical modeling blocks, you need to work in Full mode to load a preexisting model that uses this library block or to drag this block to a model.
If this library block had previously contained physical modeling blocks, you can work in Restricted mode when loading a preexisting model that uses this library block. However, you have to work in Full mode to drag this block from the library to a model.
To add external physical ports to a library block, you need to work in Full mode.
You can work in Restricted mode when loading a preexisting model that uses this library block.
However, to connect these additional ports, you need to work in Full mode because you are changing the model topology.
To delete external physical ports from a library block, you need to work in Full mode. If these ports were connected in a model saved in Restricted mode, loading the model causes the topology to change, so you need to switch to Full mode to save or compile the model.
All Simscape blocks in your models, including the vertical products' blocks, must have resolved block library links. You can neither disable nor break these library links. This is a global requirement of Simscape, which is necessary to enforce the Editing Mode rules for modifying and using library blocks, listed above. A model with broken library links will neither compile nor save. You must restore all the broken block library links for your model to be valid.
If you want to customize certain blocks and use them in your models, you must add these modified blocks to your own custom library, then copy the block instances that you need to your model.
| | Using the Simscape Editing Mode | Working with Restricted and Full Modes | |
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