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User Interface

The D2S2 user interface consists of several components:

  1. the D2S2 toolbar,
  2. model View,
  3. simulation view
  4. input, state and plot panels,
  5. information panel,
  6. and the playback toolbar,

each of which is explained in detail in this section of the documentation.

The D2S2 Toolbar

The default user interface at start-up will display a 3D visualisation screen with a toolbar along the top of the window, as shown in Figure 1.

userInterface Figure 1: Start-up user interface. The red box indicates the toolbar buttons.

The toolbar buttons and their functions are tabulated below:

Icon Function Description
image New Scenario Initialise a new scenario. Creating a new scenario will delete the current model and simulation progress.
image Open Scenario Load an existing scenario file. Pressing this button will cause a file window to appear, where the user can select a scenario file (D2S2 scenario files have a .d2s2 extension. Go here for more information about scenario files).
image Save Scenario Save the current scenario to a .d2s2 project file. The current model objects, their initial properties, dependencies between model objects, and the simulation settings are saved (Go here for more information about scenario files).
image Run Script Pressing this button will open a window from where available scripts are listed.
image Simulation Options Change the simulation options. Pressing this button will cause a window to appear from where simulation start time, duration and time step can be changed. See here this page for more information about the simulation settings.
image Run Simulation If the simulation is running, pressing this button will pause the simulation. If the simulation is paused or in reset, pressing this button will run the simulation.
image Reset Simulation Reset the simulation (this is necessary to create or modify model components).
image Sign In Opens a window that prompts you to enter your D2S2 username and password. Signing in is necessary to access all of D2S2's features.
image About Display version and license information.

Table 1: The buttons on the top toolbar and their corresponding functions.

Model View

The Model View Window depicted in Figure 2 is accessed by clicking the button. It shows how the scenario is constructed by displaying the dependencies between model objects as an object graph. The base of the object graph is the simulation model, which is dependent on models of the earth, sun moon, one or more satellites, as well as a number of geographic locations. In turn, these models have their own dependencies. As an example, the earth model is dependent on models of the atmosphere, magnetic field, ionosphere and central body gravitational potential.

modelView Figure 2: The model view Window (as indicated by the red box) shows the dependencies between model objects as a graph.

Simulation View

The simulation view, shown in Figure 3, is a visual representation of the simulation results. Through this view, you can observe an animation of the satellite orbiting the Earth both during and after the simulation run. It is accessed by pressing the button.

Figure 3: The simulation view shows an animation of the satellite orbiting the Earth.

Several camera views are available for observing the satellite using through this view. They are tabulated below:

Icon View Name Description
Map View 2D Camera The camera is fixed to and shows the Earth as a flat map
Inertial Camera The camera is fixed to the Earth, but does not rotate with it.
Earth Camera The camera is fixed to and rotates with the Earth.
Map View Following 2D Camera Similar to Map View 2D Camera, except the camera is fixed to the satellite.
Orbit Camera The camera is fixed to the orbital reference frame.
Satellite Camera The camera is fixed to and rotates with the satellite.

For a more detailed description about reference frames and the available views, see this page.

Input, state and plot panels

The input parameters and state of any model object can be viewed by selecting it. There are two methods to select an object. These are;

  1. by clicking on the animation in the simulation view (see Figure 4 top). However, not all model objects have a visual representation (the Kinematic Model for instance).
  2. Interacting with the object in the model view (see Figure 4 bottom).

Figure 4: Screen capture corresponding showing the two methods to select a model object. These are via the simulation view (shown top), and the simulation model tree (shown bottom).

Changing object inputs and initial values

Once a model object is selected, its input parameters and initial state values can be altered through the Input panel. Importantly, the model object initial values may only be altered while the simulation is paused or in the Reset state. Otherwise, the initial values will be greyed out. However, some model object properties may be altered after the start of the simulation. Figure 4 shows an example input panel for the selected SimSat model object after pausing the simulation. From this figure, nominal Alignment is greyed out, indicating that it is an initial parameter and cannot be changed. However, the input parameters Include aero disturbances and Include solar disturbances can still be changed.

modelInput Figure 5: the input panel for the selected SimSat model object, after pausing the simulation.

Viewing the simulation state

The state panel shown in Figure 6 will display the recorded state of the selected model object for the current playback epoch. The state is listed as a number of properties, some which can be expanded with further child properties. If the simulation is in Reset, the initial state will be displayed.

Viewing plots of simulation results

Selecting a property in the state panel causes a plot of that property over time to be displayed in a Plot panel. This plot appears directly beneath the state panel. Figure 6 shows an example where the satellite's position has been selected from the state panel, and the x, y and z coordinates of the satellite are being plotted. Furthermore, a number of buttons become visible when hovering over the plot window. Notably, the saveToCSV button allows the data in the chart to be exported to a CSV file.

modelInput Figure 6: The Plot panel appears directly beneath the state panel. In this case, it is displaying the satellites position over time.

Information panel

Whenever a model object is selected, but no input or state is selected, then an information panel will appear in the bottom right of the screen, in place of the plot panel. This information panel shows link dependencies between objects, initial value properties, as well as state properties. An example of this information panel displaying information for the SimSat EPS model object is shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: The information panel displaying link dependencies and initial value properties for the SimSat EPS.

Simulation playback Toolbar

As the simulation runs, the state for the model objects will be recorded and stored in a cache (go here to find more information about the settings that control the simulation and cache storage). This state can be used to play back the simulation up to the point where the simulation was paused (Pressing the Reset Simulation button will also clear the cache). The playback toolbar shown in Figure 8 can be used to play back the simulation stored in the cache. Furthermore, the time slider the playback time to a specific point of interest.

Figure 8: The playback toolbar with buttons annotated.