3.1 Monitoring the Process

You can monitor the optimization process while it is running or after it has finished.
Enter the Design Space by clicking on the corresponding tab, or selecting Assessment|Design Space from the menu.
On the left vertical tool bar click on the Design Table icon : in this way you access the Design Table window (see Fig. T3.1.1).

Fig. T3.1.1: the Design Space desktop: the Design Table.

In the table, all the generated designs are listed, and the background color of each row is meaningful: not feasible designs are highlighted in yellow, and the cells of the corresponding violated constraints are highlighted in orange.
The bottom frame shows the Design Space Log, that is a summary of the current situation (total number of designs and number of error, unfeasible, marked, and virtual designs).

Since a list of values is not really easy to understand at a glance, modeFRONTIER let you create several types of charts, so the results will be immediately evident.
The first visualization tool we use is the History Chart . With the History Chart we can see graphically the "temporal evolution" of any variable, objective, or constraint.
Click on the pertinent icon, and then select in the History Chart Creation dialog the objective Cost (see Fig. T3.1.2).

Fig. T3.1.2: the History Chart Creation dialog.

We can select more than one item simply keeping the SHIFT or CTRL key pressed while selecting the desired elements.
Pressing the Ok button we obtain the graphic shown in Fig. T3.1.3.

Fig. T3.1.3: the History Chart.

The designs that are violating the constraints are plotted in yellow, the feasible solutions are plotted in white.
Clicking on a design point will mark it for further operations. A RMB click on a design point will show a table listing its properties.
With a RMB click on an empty zone of the chart, it is possible to access a pop-up menu with several options: for example, selecting Graphic Properties, we can modify the aesthetic features of the chart, or selecting Axis Properties, we can change the axis range values.
It is possible to zoom a portion of the chart simply by clicking and dragging on it, while keeping the SHIFT key pressed (see Fig. T3.1.3). To restore press the r key.

Fig. T3.1.4: zoomed History Chart.