Development of a visual tool for dynamic simulation program HVACSIM+

This paper explains the development of a dedicated configuration tool for the HVACSIM+ simulation environment. This computer-based tool eases configuration by exploiting a visual metaphor of a simulation subject. This paper also explains the configuration tool's method of development, its functionality, and suggests some potential applications which could benefit from an object-oriented development. The tool was developed with object-oriented technology in 1994. We used the Object Modeling Technique (OMT) to analyze the information of a HVACSIM+ simulation target, and developed the visual configuration tool on top of our existing object-oriented framework. This new visual tool functions as a preprocessor, in the same way as HVACGEN did for HVACSIM+. And the new tool employs a visual metaphor, making the work of constructing the simulation model easier than was the case with HVACGEN.