Excel as Simulation Tool?

[Friam mailing list]

I've seen this mentioned several places .. Excel as a modeling tool.
Has anyone any information on how its done and whether or not it is
successful?

Owen Densmore           451 Camino Don Miguel     Santa Fe, NM 87505
Work: 505-983-6305      Cell: 505-570-0168        Home: 505-988-3787
[hidden email]     http://backspaces.net/

[Friam mailing list]

> I've seen this mentioned several places .. Excel as a modeling tool.
> Has anyone any information on how its done and whether or not it is
> successful?

Roger Jones, Sven Redsun and I have done extensive simulations with
Excel.  The Insurance World Simulator marketed by Assuratech was first
implemented in Excel and then extended with Visual Basic and later with
MathCad.  Complexica's clients often use elaborate Excel spreadsheets to
model their processes.

How is it done?  Tables of calculations.  A wide range of graphs.
 External data feeds. Pivot tables.  Sorting and filtering.  Entry of
trial values.
-Roger Frye

[Friam mailing list]

>I've seen this mentioned several places .. Excel as a modeling tool.
>Has anyone any information on how its done and whether or not it is
>successful?

Some people at Complexica (Roger Jones, Roger Frye, & me) used Excel for business simulations like Insurance World,
   http://www.assuratech.com/insuranceworld.htm
(you can download a demo that does not include the simulation capability). It combined Excel spreadsheets & charts (the user interface), VBA macros (for responding to user commands), and a Mathcad engine hidden in the background (for the core computations).

While it worked, it got to be extremely difficult to make even small changes to any one of the three components without breaking the other two. The next version will probably be in Java.

-Sven-

[Friam mailing list]

Owen:

There's an interesting book called "Modeling the World in a Spreadsheet" by Timothy J.
Cartwright, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, which you might find of interest. I have
it and would be glad to lend it to you.

Richard


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On Behalf
Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2003 5:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Excel as Simulation Tool?


I've seen this mentioned several places .. Excel as a modeling tool.
Has anyone any information on how its done and whether or not it is
successful?

Owen Densmore           451 Camino Don Miguel     Santa Fe, NM 87505
Work: 505-983-6305      Cell: 505-570-0168        Home: 505-988-3787
[hidden email]     http://backspaces.net/


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[Friam mailing list]

On Monday, February 17, 2003, at 05:51  PM, Sven Gato Redsun wrote:

>> I've seen this mentioned several places .. Excel as a modeling tool.
>> Has anyone any information on how its done and whether or not it is
>> successful?
>
> Some people at Complexica (Roger Jones, Roger Frye, & me) used Excel
> for business simulations like Insurance World,
>    http://www.assuratech.com/insuranceworld.htm
> (you can download a demo that does not include the simulation
> capability). It combined Excel spreadsheets & charts (the user
> interface), VBA macros (for responding to user commands), and a
> Mathcad engine hidden in the background (for the core computations).
>
> While it worked, it got to be extremely difficult to make even small
> changes to any one of the three components without breaking the other
> two. The next version will probably be in Java.

Interesting!  Would the conversion to Java be to an agent based
framework
like RePast, NetLogo or Ascape?  Or would it be a Java based extension
to Excel?
Or a custom Java application?

My experiences with both NetLogo and RePast are quite positive.  And the
two are very complementary: NetLogo is for nice simple explorations and
RePast for the heavy weight solution that has no limitations.

A great addition being made to RePast for example, is the ability to
perform the simulation on a GIS-Geographical Information System.  So
your agents can roam the globe!  GeoTools2 is the Java GIS being used.
I haven't tried it yet but it seems very compelling to start introducing
GIS into modeling, I think.

Owen

> -Sven-
>
> =========================================================
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> Meets Fridays 9AM @ Museum Hill Cafe
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Owen Densmore           451 Camino Don Miguel     Santa Fe, NM 87505
Work: 505-983-6305      Cell: 505-570-0168        Home: 505-988-3787
[hidden email]     http://backspaces.net/