var fDesc=new Array(); fDesc[0] = "SimTool is a Free, easy to use, graphical system-simulation and Modeling environment for Windows 2000/XP/Vista. Using SimTool you can design, simulate, and optimize your systems before you build them. SimTool is mainly targeted towards motion control and related systems, but has basic functions that could also be used to simulate many other types of systems. SimTool is a completely flexible program, allowing the user to design their system just the way they want it. This means that you can add complexity to your as you become confident of it's reliability.

The main components of the simulation environment are called 'Transfer Functions' (TF). These are exactly like the blocks used in the block diagrams that you learned about in basic controls. For example one of the most basic TFs is the integrator (1/s) function. This function performs a simple continuous integration.

SimTool includes over 80 Transfer Functions, including Boolean logic such as AND or NOT, Math functions such as ln(x) or sqrt(), but it also includes more complex TFs that real world components, such as motors, motor drive amplifiers, or digital encoders. SimTool also includes a number of filters such as the Notch and 2 Pole Low Pass filters.

SimTool can group the components of sub-systems together, to allow easy management and reuse of sets of Transfer Functions that are frequently used. SimTool also provides documentation functionality, such as comments embedded in the system ling area, and graphical printing capability.

There are also about 20 different example systems that are included with the installation of SimTool, which can help you get started ling your system. The SimTool help system also describes how a basic control system works, and how to correctly implement a very basic version.

An example of a system that is easily simulated using SimTool, is a digital PID controller that is used to control the position of a rotary motor."; function tShowHide(id, show) { var s = document.getElementById("desc"); if ((s.innerHTML.length<=212 || show==1) && show!=2) { s.innerHTML = fDesc[id]; if (document.getElementById('m1')) document.getElementById('m1').style.display='none'; if (document.getElementById('m2')) document.getElementById('m2').style.display='none'; if (document.getElementById('more_txt')) document.getElementById('more_txt').style.display='inline'; } else { s.innerHTML = ''; } }