Page Comparison

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• The number of objectives;
• The independence of the objectives;
• Sensitivity of those objective functions to decision variables;
• The value of the objectives to stakeholders; and
• The ability to use outputs from the model to calculate the required objective.

Working with Insight

All tasks undertaken to carry out an optimisation run (from creating a settings file to the actual run) can be completed using either the Insight interface or a command line. These are described in further detail in subsequent sections.

Ensure that the following pre-requisites are met prior to installing Insight:

• Latest version of Source. This must be correctly installed prior to running Insight;
• Microsoft .NET framework v4 (or higher); and
• Microsoft C++ 2010 x86 redistributable package.

At Additionally, at a minimum, Insight requires the following to run an optimisation:

• A Source scenario containing decision variables and objectives;
• Access to the Source command line tool;
• An Insight settings file (containing the Source project location, objectives and decision variables);
• The number of generations; and
• The population size of each generation.

The decision variables and objectives must be defined in the Source project as global expressions. Insight can then run the Source model thousands of times, setting different values for the decision variable expressions and evaluating the corresponding objectives for every individual run.
This means that in order for a Source parameter to be included in an optimisation problem, that parameter needs to be defined using the Function manager in Source.

Using the Insight interface

When you open Insight for the first time, you may be prompted to point Insight to the location of the Source command line tool (RiverSystem.CommandLine.exe), as shown in Figure 1. 

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Figure 2 shows the user interface for Insight, allowing which allows you to load Source projects and work with objectives and variables, configure a settings file and perform an optimisation run.

The File menu items allow you to work with settings and results as follows:

• File » Load Settings - Load settings that were previously configured and saved;
• File » Save Settings - Saves the current run settings;
• File » Load results - Loads the results of a previously saved optimisation run; and
• File » Save results - Save the results of the current optimisation run; and
• File » Exit - Quits Insight.

Figure 2. Insight user interface

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Setting up an optimisation run/Creating a settings file

1. Open Insight and click Browse (as shown in Figure 1) to choose the directory containing the project(s);
2. Click Load to populate the left panel with all the objective functions that were created in the loaded projects;
3. For each of the panels on the right, use the appropriate button to add or remove objectives or variables from the main objectives list to the individual panel. For example, click Add objective » to add an objective to the Objectives panel. Moreover, to move a discrete decision variable back to the main list of objective functions, click « Remove discrete decision variable.
4. In the Objectives panel, the Multi-project Aggregation Method drop-down menu allows you to choose how you want to aggregate the individual time-step results. The Aggregate over full timeseries checkbox allows you to choose how to setup the objectives. If enabled, the objective needs to be set up so that all values of the global expression are used (via the selected statistical function) to give the objective value. If not, the last value of the global expression gives the objective value. You can also remove an objective from the Objectives panel by choosing it from the list and clicking . This will move the objective back to the main objectives list.
5. Choose the number of generations and the population size of each generation. These parameters define how many simulation runs are performed by the optimiser. The required values will depend on the complexity of the optimisation project. If the number of runs is too small, the optimiser will not be given sufficient time to search for the multi-objective optimal set of results.
6. Specify whether to run the optimisation on your local machine (enable the Run Source optimisation locally radio button), or across server endpoints (using the Run Source optimisation on endpoints radio button). Server endpoints allow you to run the optimisation across several machines simultaneously. Load the endpoints settings file by clicking Load Endpoints and point Insight to the appropriate file. If running Source optimisation on a local machine, set the number of cores to use with the Local server limit scroll button. The number of cores to use depends on the machine you will are using.
7. Save your project settings using File » Save Settings. This creates a settings file, which can be used later, either in the command line or in the interface.

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Once you have nominated the location of Source, the Source project to optimise, and the objectives and decision variables, click Run to begin the optimisation.

The On completion, the results can be saved for future use using File » Save results.

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Results from a previous optimisation run (including those that have been run from a command line) can be loaded using File » Load results.