Modelica Reviews & Product Details

The best feature is the access to the standard components in the libraries, that cover several engineering domains, and that the language and modelling system provide standards for how different components should be interfaced so you can connect them together. This makes building systems from components very easy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The threshold for new users is high when it comes to the development of new components, or new domains. Debugging of your prototype components and models is difficult in equation oriented models, as there is no given causality that you can follow. It's the strength for system building but a weakness for debugging while developing new components. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Intuitive acausal DAE systems. Easy to create models from scratch and build on base clase with simple functions. GUI and drag drop mode is easy to use. Wide variety of validated components and libraries available, most of which are open source. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A lot of post processing is needed to get from model to results. Debugging is often difficult. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Modelica language allows to do object-oriented equation-based modeling using both graphical composition (aka, drag and drop) and/or textual modeling (i.e. by using the language itself) to define models of complex systems. If the models are developed adhering to the language definition, they can work in multiple tools, e.g. Dymola, OpenModelica, SystemModeler, Optimica Compiler Toolkit, etc, without the need to reimplement them; which allows to take advantage of the different features in the different tools. Finally, most Modelica tools allow to export models using the FMI standard, which improves even further the portability of the models. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

That traditional vendors of tools, e.g. Mathworks, do not support it so to lock-in customers to their environment.

I wish the standard was more broadly adopted, but this is a challenging area as tool vendors do not have an incentive to allow their users to adopt a standard that would enable portability. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Modelica is incredibly flexible. Code reuse is the stuff dreams are made of: you literally put code together like Lego, and it just works.

This is because the declarative paradigm allows (requires) you to describe the problem in terms of equations, and let the computer figure out how to solve them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The declarative paradigm is great, but it comes at a price: you lose control of the algorithm, and error messages are often cryptic. (This is not Modelica's fault, but rather an implicit trade-off.)

As a result, you need to build long class hierarchies, with a new class for every feature, and extensive test cases for each level in order to catch where problems appear.

Also, nonlinear equations with multiple solutions can be tricky, as the solver might choose unphysical solutions (negative concentrations and so on). Can be fixed, but will take time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

That it has a free version and do what it says. Can be used for simple and complex problems and it easy for amateurs as its learning curve is really fast. From a modeling point of view, block creation and equation formulation things are quite straightforward. The capability of library creation is very important and well used. Modelica as a modeling language is powerful and easy to use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some discrepancies between free (OpenModelica) and paid versions (Dymola). With the use of different solvers, slightly or significantly different results may occur. The user has to be aware of the mathematical nature of its problem in order to select the correct solver. Presentation of results can be improved in the OpenModelica free version. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Equation based and acausal modelling of behaviour, suitable for modeling

complex physical systems which encompass disciplines that are very different in nature.

Object Oriented Modeling approach adopts concepts of Object Oriented Programming, where features such as class, inheritance, encapsulation, abstraction, etc forms the architecture of the modeling language.

Non-proprietary language, which encouraged the development of a large

repository of open-source libraries across various disciplines. For the same reason, there is a large number of Modelica simulation environments that are available, both commercially and free of charge Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Support for scripting in modelica language is lacking

Good software such as Dymola is expensive when compared to MATLAB (Modelica's main competitor) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

you can design each component of your circuit as a single component, so it is not dependent from the others. It has a lot of libraries, even though most of them are not free, and in those libraries you can find and use most of the needed components of your circuit. So they are already modeled and you don't have to spend time doing that.

Moreover, once the code is compiled, the simulations are very fast to run, compared to Matlab of other languages. also, you can work a lot graphically: you can connect graphically the components, design the circuit as you prefer, and use many different levels, since you can use components that are made of different components, and graphically you can see the whole system, and the inside of each component. Moreover, it is possible also to see the results on the system that you design, such as temperature, pressure and mass flow rate of different selected points, and its variations during the time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

the export is an FMU and you need a FMI to read it, and it is free only on python.

it is also not so easy to understand what it is doing if there is an error and the c-code is not available.

moreover, it gives some font problems on 4K screens.

moreover, if you connect some components in the text mode, you cannot see them graphically, so you lose the whole graphic part of the program if, for example, you need to connect a lot of similar components using the 'for cycle'. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like the component-based approach in Modelica. We can create a library of components and use it for various system-level modeling and simulation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The modeling of new components might be difficult for a few people without programming experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Modelica provides a complete environment for modeling different physical systems. I have been using it to model building systems using a modular approach. I can even draw systems from scratch that other team members can use to build their systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I hate that Modelica doesn't have a standard interface to enhance interoperability. Also, the support documentation is not appropriate and needs further testing and development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.