Engage with the FlexSim community here on the FlexSim forum boards. Check out our learning resources. Customers with current licensing can request direct technical support from their FlexSim representative, via phone, email, web meeting, or support ticket.  

Interacting with your licenses isn't something you do every day, but it doesn't need to be intimidating. We've documented all the main procedures you'll use to manage your FlexSim licenses like a pro.   When you purchased your FlexSim licenses you chose one of two methods for licensing your software. Click below to jump to the licensing procedures for your style of licenses:   Network Licensing Standalone Licensing Need a refresher on the differences between network and standalone licensing? Our Standalone vs Network Licensing.pdf is a basic intro or check out our in-depth article on License Models. Network Licensing With an in-house license server you don't activate your licenses directly in the software (as in standalone licensing). Instead, your FlexSim software is configured to obtain a seat from a license server in your organization's network. Your organization will need to provision, install, and maintain a license server.   Here are instructions for all the primary server licensing tasks.   Install, Configure, Activate Here are our instructions for installing, configuring, and licensing your server, and for configuring FlexSim to get a seat from your license server. This document covers both online and secure/offline scenarios.   PDF installation guide Online Answers articles index We have some shorter guides focused specifically on just the license activation step. If you already have an installed and configured license server, these guides are provided as a convenience for use in subsequent licensing procedures, like upgrading your licenses.   License Server - Activation - Online License Server - Activation - XML / Offline   Return You may occasionally need to migrate your licenses to a new license server or return your license as part of a license version upgrade.   License Server - Return - Online License Server - Return - XML / Offline   Repair In rare circumstances your activated license can become "broken". This means that even though the license is still activated on your server it is no longer able to serve seats to client PCs. This can happen if your server hardware or operating system changes significantly.   License Server - Repair - Online License Server - Repair - XML / Offline   Upgrade FlexSim releases new feature-versions several times per year. If the licenses activated on your license server are lower than the version of FlexSim software you're trying to run, FlexSim software won't be able to be licensed by your license server. You can learn more about how licensing works for a given version number in our Answers article FlexSim Version Numbering.   In this case you'll need to upgrade the activated licenses on your license server. If your maintenance is current, follow the procedure linked below to upgrade your license server for use with the latest versions of FlexSim. If your maintenance is expired contact your local FlexSim distributor to renew.   This article covers both online and secure/offline scenarios.   License Server - Upgrading your hosted licenses   Miscellaneous These items don't pertain to any particular licensing procedure but may be useful in some situations.   License Server - View licenses License Server - Delete fulfillment   Standalone Licensing With standalone licensing you'll activate a license code (also called an Activation ID) directly in FlexSim.   Below are detailed instructions for all the primary licensing tasks used in managing your standalone licenses:   Activation To apply a license to your computer, follow the linked instructions depending on whether your computer or network allows FlexSim to communicate online.   Standalone - Activation - Online Standalone - Activation - XML / Offline   Return Returning your license removes it from your computer and makes your seat available for a new activation. This is useful if you need to free up a seat for a colleague or move your license to a different computer. You may also return your license as part of the upgrade process for a new version of FlexSim - returning the old version so that you can activate an upgraded Activation ID.   Standalone - Return - Online Standalone - Return - XML / Offline   Repair In rare circumstances, your activated license can become "broken". This means that even though the license is still activated on your computer it no longer enables additional features allowed by your license type. This can happen if your computer hardware or operating system changes significantly.   There is no online method available. Please use the XML / Offline method. Standalone - Repair - XML / Offline   Upgrade FlexSim releases several new feature-versions per year. An upgraded version of the software requires an updated license key to enable its licensed features. Licenses with a current maintenance subscription are eligible to be upgraded to the new version. You can learn more about how licensing works for a given version number in our Answers article FlexSim Version Numbering.   If your maintenance is current, follow the procedure linked below to upgrade your license for use with the latest versions of FlexSim. If your maintenance is expired contact your local FlexSim distributor to renew.   This article covers both online and secure/offline scenarios:   Standalone - Upgrading your license   Miscellaneous These items don't pertain to any particular licensing procedure but may be useful in some situations.   Standalone - View licenses Standalone - Delete fulfillment

You might be wondering what data is collected when you use FlexSim simulation software. How is it sent to FlexSim? How is it stored? What is it used for? Can you opt out?   Below you'll read all about it, but for those who can't be bothered:   tl;dr: Our customers have complete control when deciding what data is sent to FlexSim. Any data gathering is easily circumvented, disabled, or avoided.   If that interests you, read below for the details.   Introduction There are four ways your data may be sent to FlexSim, and there are workarounds you can implement for each to avoid sharing any data. Each link jumps to its section below: FlexSim Accounts (contact information) Licensing your software or your local license server (license and computer information) Online communications from the software (license and computer information) Support or model building services (customer-sent data) You can also jump to the Conclusion.   FlexSim Accounts We receive user personal contact information when someone signs up for a FlexSim account, or when an account is created for a person in order to give them a license. FlexSim Account information includes required fields (name, email, organization, country) and optional fields (including title, address info, phone). These data are submitted to FlexSim through web forms. Our website is only accessible via HTTPS, with TLS 1.2 or higher enforced. FlexSim's databases are hosted in United States data centers, and this data is encrypted at rest with LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) in default mode aes-xts-plain64:sha256 with a 512-bit key. Data is encrypted in transit with SSL. FlexSim US's CRM is HubSpot, and US contacts are saved there. HubSpot ensures that your data is encrypted at rest. HubSpot's sites and services are accessed via HTTPS and we've configured our account's security settings to require TLS 1.2 or higher. Contacts from outside the United States are forwarded to their regional FlexSim distributor, who operate independently and may use a different CRM. Our websites track usage information to help us improve our marketing and fix site issues. Basic web browsing logging data is collected, such as IP/location information, browser type, session duration, etc. Additionally, if you are logged in to your FlexSim account, we keep download, license, and profile logs. Check out Autodesk's privacy policy. Workaround A FlexSim Account requires a person's contact information for convenience only. If a customer wishes, an account can be set up with a generic name, like "CompanyXYZ FlexSim Rep," and a generic email, like "flexsim@company-xyz.com". Having a real name and email of an actual person is convenient, but also optional. As long as we have a way to communicate with a customer, that works!   Licensing License codes When a client PC communicates with our main license server to activate or return a standalone FlexSim license, it does so over secure HTTPS.   When licensing a local license server using the licensing utility flexsimserveractutil.exe license codes are transmitted in plaintext over HTTP. This means that license codes are transmitted in the clear. The risk to a licensed user is that if your online communications are being monitored your license keys could be compromised, allowing someone else to obtain your FlexSim license keys and potentially use them to activate your FlexSim licenses and consume your seats, leaving you without the ability to activate those seats normally.   If there is ever an issue where a license should be available but for some reason is not successfully activating, customers can contact their local FlexSim distributor for licensing support. These situations can be handled quickly.   License codes are stored in plaintext in FlexSim's main Flexnet Operations server database.   Additional license history information When a license is activated over the Internet, whether by a client PC (standalone license) or when configuring a license server (server license), FlexSim also receives the Windows username of the person logged in doing the action, and the Windows computer name where the license is being activated. When activating a standalone license this information is first AES-256 encrypted before transmission over HTTP. For a license server the username/computer name are transmitted in plaintext over HTTP. Once received by FlexSim, the Windows computer name and username are stored in our database which is LUKS encrypted at rest and are displayed to the customer in their account's license history. The license history allows customers to track license usage and location - a useful feature requested by our customers to help manage standalone licenses shared among multiple people.   When activating a standalone license over the internet, the software also sends basic operating system and FlexSim software version information, which, like the Windows username/computername, is AES-256 encrypted before being transmitted over HTTP. This additional information is AES-256 encrypted at rest.   Workaround We have an alternate method of licensing that applies to both standalone PCs and license servers where a user generates XML requests and manually submits them to FlexSim's website over HTTPS using TLS 1.2 or higher. Licensing by XML avoids the following potential issues: License codes sent in plaintext over HTTP FlexSim receiving Windows username and computer name information, and in the case of standalone licensing, additional operating system and FlexSim software version information. Manual licensing is somewhat less convenient and more time consuming than online licensing - instead of just a button push there are several steps to follow in sequence, including generating requests, uploading requests, downloading responses, processing responses. It is up to you to decide whether easy-online or manual-XML licensing is most appropriate for your organization.   License operations, both automated/online or manual/XML are documented in our article Licensing Procedures.   Online communications Start page FlexSim software has a web-based start page that by default sends basic computer information to FlexSim to request introductory content to display when starting the software. This information includes FlexSim version, and general Operating System properties including Windows version, language, and country. These are used to display appropriate content to the user. For instance, we have localized versions of the start page depending on the country and language settings sent by the client PC. If a computer is licensed, the license information along with Windows username and computer name are also sent, again for a history of license use, and also in the case that FlexSim needs to display specific information only to licensed users, such as expected maintenance windows for FlexSim's main license server, etc.   The start page is enabled by default. The above-described information is AES-256 encrypted and then transmitted to FlexSim over HTTPS using TLS 1.2 or higher. The data remains AES-256 encrypted at rest.   Telemetry A user can also enable additional telemetry as an opt-in feature. This sends additional operating system and hardware information such as CPU, RAM, screen resolution, GPU type and driver version, all of which helps us build an aggregated view of the computer capabilities of our user base. This is useful for development decisions, to make sure we target the simulation software to hardware that is generally available to a majority of our user base. This telemetry info is AES-256 encrypted, transmitted to FlexSim over HTTPS TLS 1.2 or higher, and stored in AES-256 at rest.   Workaround: The start page can be disabled with an in-software setting. Additional telemetry is an opt-in feature. You can read more about online communication in our Sofware License Agreement, item 15. Online Communication. The in-software settings are configured from FlexSim simulation software's main menu > File > Global Preferences > Dynamic Content tab.   Support In the course of using FlexSim simulation software, your simulation engineers may send models or other data to Autodesk's FlexSim support team for help via email, or by posting to this online community. Your employees should only do so according to whatever applicable policies you have in place.   In this online community, questions are asked publicly, allowing our worldwide community and partners to help solve problems and provide answers, insights, and experience. Any information or attachments posted to this community are public.   Workaround Don't post or email confidential data. If you need support but your simulation model contains proprietary/confidential/secret information, you could: Pose a general question without including any attachments. Post a sample model you create that demonstrates the question or issue at hand without using any confidential information. If you have a current maintenance contract, you can also contact your local FlexSim distributor for live phone or web meeting support. You could share your screen so that our support staff could help troubleshoot your issues directly on your PC. In this way you could get the help you need without ever transferring any files or data off your computer.   Conclusion Any data that FlexSim might receive is described above, and any data gathering can be circumvented, disabled, or avoided using the provided workarounds. Our customers maintain complete control when deciding what data is sent to FlexSim. In addition, we're happy to delete any information we may already have on your company or your users. We are responsive to our customer's requests and wish to assure you of our commitment to your privacy and security. Simply contact your local FlexSim distributor with any requests about what data we have about you or to request any deletions.   Thank you for your patience in reviewing this long article! Contact your local FlexSim distributor if you have any questions or concerns.

The attached model draws a heatmap based on the total time AGVs are blocked in a particular location.   Approach Outline This model creates the output graphics as follows: There is a Group of all AGVs. A Statistics Collector listens to all state changes on all AGVs in the group. Each time an AGV goes into the “Blocked” state, the Statistics Collector adds a row, recording the location of the AGV and the current time. Each time an AGV leaves the “Blocked” state, the Statistics Collector updates the row for that AGV to calculate the total time the AGV was blocked. A Shape object (called CongestionHeatmap) reads the data in the Statistics Collector and draws the heatmap. All block times in the table are grouped into spatial “Pixels” based on the block location. Note: this article uses the word Pixel to mean the squares in the heatmap. For each Pixel, the shape sums the total block time in that Pixel. Pixels are colored relative to the Pixels with the most and least block time. Design Points The legend, drawn near the CongestionMap shape object, shows the numerical values for the min and max block time. To disable the heatmap, disable the Statistics Collector. To clear the heatmap, reset, then step, then reset again. Alternatively, you can call the resetheatmap() user command. The heatmap is cleared in the OnSimulationStart trigger of the CongestionMap shape. This way, the heatmap can be viewed when the model is reset. This way, the heatmap is visible without obscuring (or being obscured by) the AGVs. To change the Pixel size, set the PixelSize label on the CongestionMap shape object in the model. There isn’t  much of a performance impact to changing the pixel size. Choosing a good size is more like choosing a good bucket size for a histogram. If the Pixels are too large, it will be hard to tell where the congestion is truly happening, as a single Pixel might cover many areas of the network. If the Pixels are too small, congestion accumulation may be spread between many pixels, making the hotspots harder to see. You can change the pixel size during the model run if you change the label and call the  resetheatmap command. Performance is good. The biggest impact is from listening to the On State Change event of the AGVs. This model starts a real-time timer in the On Run Start model trigger and stops the timer in the On Run Stop model trigger. The output console shows the duration. You can compare model performance with and without the heatmap this way. This approach is most helpful with AGVs. However, it works with any object that goes in the Blocked state. AGVs just happen to go into a blocked state when they accumulate or when they can’t acquire control points/areas. The heatmap is drawn using a mesh. The mesh is more complicated to create, but is much, much faster to draw than using other draw commands. Meshes are used to draw triangles. Each Pixel is drawn as two triangles that form a square. All vertices of that square are set to the same color. Using a mesh also made drawing the legend simple. Meshes always interpolate colors between vertices. The legend draws squares where the top vertices are set to one color and the bottom vertices are set to another. Moving the CongestionMap object does not move the Pixels, so you can place it anywhere in the model. The legend won’t move until the next model run. How To Recreate in Another Model Create a group containing all the objects (AGVs) that should contribute to the heatmap. Create a Statistics Collector to record the location and duration of the block time For the On State Change event, the Statistics Collector responds twice. First, to finish the existing row and second to start a new row. When a row is added, the Statistics Collector adds a row label to record when the block started. When a row is updated, the BlockTime column is set to the current time minus the start time. Create a Shape object. Shape Object Details The shape object has the following labels: PixelSize – the size (in model units) of a Pixel. MeshZ – the height of the heatmap. If you set this to a non-zero value, be sure to reset the 3D view’s rotation and uncheck the “Perspective Projection” box. mesh – this label contains the mesh data. MeshMap – this label holds a Map (a collection of key-value pairs). Each key is an array containing the x and y coordinates of the Pixel. Each value is an array of the vertex numbers for that pixel. VertCount – the total number of vertices contained in the mesh. The mesh grows as blocks occur in more places. MaxBlockTime – the maximum block time in any Pixel MinBlockTime – the minimum block time in any Pixel The shape object as the following triggers: On Simulation Start – clears the mesh, MeshMap, VertCount, MaxBlockTime, and MinBlockTime labels. It also adds vertices to draw the legend. On Pre Draw – adds vertices (if needed) to the mesh and changes the vertex colors. This is the most complicated part. First, loop over the data in the Statistics Collector. For each “block” record: Use the exact location to calculate the Pixel location. Using a map, increment the running total of block time at that Pixel Keep track of the min and max values. Then, loop over the pixel/block time map If the MeshMap doesn’t have vertices for the desired Pixel, add them to the mesh and to the map Based on the color from the color palette, set the color for all six vertices. On Draw – draw the triangles of the mesh. Important: OnDraw should not change the mesh. OnDraw is called many times per draw to calculate shadows. OnPreDraw is only called once. Disable lighting – colors are not “shadowed” and the Pixels don’t draw shadows. Set the PolygonOffset so the mesh is always drawn above the grid.

Staying up-to-date FlexSim recommends staying up-to-date and using the latest Software version. New features, improvements, and bug fixes make your simulations more stable, more powerful, and easier to build. In addition, the Software is developed for use with contemporaneous hardware, operating systems, and drivers. Among other reasons, as third parties phase out these technologies, FlexSim must discontinue support for Software versions developed for use with those technologies. Finally, as usage of older versions decreases, FlexSim must devote its resources to supporting more recent Software versions to best serve the majority of our customers who stay current on Software maintenance and updates. Lifecycle and Support Policy If you must use an older Software version, understanding the Software Support Lifecycle will help you make informed decisions about when to upgrade. A Software release is generally supported until it is four (4) or more versions prior to the current release. For the most up-to-date lifecycle and support policy information, please see section 17. Software Support of FlexSim's Software License Agreement. Lifecycle status terminology Supported - FlexSim will maintain licensing infrastructure necessary for a given Software version and will provide technical support for that version for licensed users under current maintenance or subscription. Bugfixes - Bugfixes are issued periodically for the latest Software version, as needed. A Software version typically receives bugfixes until the next Software feature release. Learn more about FlexSim version numbering and bugfixes. LTS - Long-term support versions receive bugfixes for a longer period, typically 12-15 months. Beta - Preview the next version of FlexSim Software for demonstration, testing, and validation. Beta versions may not be suitable for day-to-day production use. Beta versions are superseded by their production-release version. No support - After a Software version is 4 or more versions older than the latest release it is no longer supported. Such a version may continue to work on the computer where it is installed and licensed, but it is no longer eligible for technical support and FlexSim cannot guarantee that licensing infrastructure will remain in place to move the license key to another computer. Supported Versions The following Software versions are currently supported. Application Version General Availability   Lifecycle Status FlexSim 25.1 2025-04-14   supported + bugfixes FlexSim 25.0 2024-12-11   supported + LTS FlexSim 24.2 2024-08-05   supported FlexSim 24.1 2024-04-08   supported Unsupported Versions The following Software versions are past their supported lifecycle. We recommend updating your software to a supported version. Application Version General Availability End-of-Life Lifecycle Status FlexSim 24.0 2024-12-06 2025-04-14 no support FlexSim 23.2 2023-08-07 2024-12-11 no support FlexSim 23.1 2023-04-03 2024-08-05 no support FlexSim 23.0 2022-12-05 2024-04-08 no support FlexSim 22.2 2022-08-02 2024-04-05 no support FlexSim 22.1 2022-04-04 2024-04-05 no support FlexSim 22.0 2021-12-06 2024-04-05 no support FlexSim 21.2 2021-08-09 2024-04-05 no support FlexSim 21.1 2021-04-02 2024-04-02 no support FlexSim 21.0 2020-12-04 2024-03-26 no support FlexSim 20.2 2020-08-11 2024-03-26 no support FlexSim 20.1 2020-04-10 2024-03-26 no support FlexSim 20.0 2019-12-06 2023-12-31 no support FlexSim 17.0 - 19.2 various 2023-12-31 no support FlexSim 7.7 - 16.2 various 2022-06-30 no support HC 5.3 2017-10-13 2022-06-30 no support FlexSim < 7.7 various 2020-12-31 no support HC < 5.3 various 2020-12-31 no support Notes The date format used is YYYY-MM-DD Bugfix releases follow the same lifecycle as the major release with which they are associated. Versions not listed should be assumed as past their supported lifecycle.

FloWorks 25.1.0 is now available (15 April). This version of FloWorks is intended for use with FlexSim 2025 Update 1. If you are using FloWorks with FlexSim 2024, please update to FloWorks version 24.0.8. If you are using FloWorks with FlexSim 2024 Update 2, please update to FloWorks version 24.2.2. If you are using FloWorks with FlexSim 2025 (LTS), please update to FloWorks version 25.0.2. All versions can be found in the Downloads section of your FlexSim account on the 3rd party modules tab. Please do not hesitate to report any bugs, usability improvements and feature requests to support@talumis.com. About FloWorks FloWorks is a 3rd party module developed and maintained by Talumis BV (talumis.com). It provides faster and more accurate modelling and calculation of fluid systems than the default FlexSim fluid library. It is especially useful within the oil, gas, and bulk industry both for production and supply chain optimization. This module requires a FloWorks license with active maintenance. For any questions, please email support@talumis.com. Release notes View the full release notes in the online documentation. FloWorks 25.1.0 (15 April 2025) All changes in version 25.0.2 FloWorks 25.0.2 (15 April 2025) All changes in version 24.0.8. Improvement: Updated FloWorks tutorials Bug fix: merged duplicate "Modules" folders in offline User Manual FloWorks 25.0.1 (21 January 2025) FloWorks was not loading correctly in FlexSim 25.0.2. FlexSim Compatibility Note: This release of FloWorks is for FlexSim 25.0.2 and higher versions. For FlexSim 25.0.0 and FlexSim 25.0.1, please use FloWorks 25.0.0 or upgrade your FlexSim version. FloWorks 25.0.0 (19 December 2024) Improvement: FlowConveyor can be reversed. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.2.1 below. FloWorks 24.2.2 (15 April 2025) All changes in version v24.0.8. Bug fix: merged duplicate "Modules" folders in offline User Manual FloWorks 24.2.1 (19 December 2024) Improvement: Made Disconnect Flow Objects properties more clear. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.6 below. FloWorks 24.2.0 (6 August 2024) Bug fix: removed flicker due to unnecessary repaint in ApplyImpactFactor QuickProperties panel. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.4 below. FloWorks 24.1.1 (6 August 2024) Bug fix: removed flicker due to unnecessary repaint in ApplyImpactFactor QuickProperties panel. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.4 below. FloWorks 24.1.0 (17 April 2024) Feature: new "Apply Impact Factor" activity in ProcessFlow. Feature: new "Connect Flow Objects" and "Disconnect Flow Objects" activities in ProcessFlow. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.3 below. FloWorks 24.0.8 (15 April 2025) Improvement: Setting .content of multi-product tank will now increase or decrease layers as if there was inflow or outflow. Improvement: Internal build tools updated to ensure for example FloWorks FlexScript API documentation is always updated and Table of Contents of online and offline manual are synchronized. Improvement: Installer no longer contains the build number in the filename (e.g. FloWorks_25.0.1.msi instead of FloWorks_25.0.1.2348721.msi). Improvement: More actions create a module dependency, such as creating a FloWorks object through Object.create . Improvement: Start joint of a flow pipe can now be dragged too; also added controls on the segments to drag the whole pipe in z-direction. Improvement: Impact ID in functions like FlowObject.stop() are now Variant instead of treenode . Backwards Compatibility Note: The following may change the way updated models behave. Improvement: Setting trigger interval will now cancel and recalculate already scheduled trigger. See the extended note at Set Flow Trigger - "Interval (each)". FloWorks 24.0.7 (21 January 2025) FloWorks was not loading correctly in FlexSim 24.0.8. FlexSim Compatibility Note: This release of FloWorks is for FlexSim 24.0.8 and higher versions. For FlexSim 24.0.7 and earlier, please use FloWorks 24.0.6 or upgrade your FlexSim version. FloWorks 24.0.6 (19 December 2024) Bug fix: Flow Mixer stops with error when pulling product from an invalid port. Bug fix: Reactor vessel shape was not correctly upgraded to 24.0 from older versions. Bug fix: FlowConveyor content visualization was incorrect. Bug fix: SharedResource showed exception and didn't work correctly. Improvement: Impact events can be resumed with a Variant id identifier instead of treenode eventObject . Improvement: Fixed many incorrect tooltips in the FloWorks ProcessFlow activities. FloWorks 24.0.5 (27 August 2024) Bug fix: Version 24.0.4 installer contained an incorrect module (.t) file Bug fix: Removed ProcessFlow activities which are only available from 24.1 from the drag/drop library FloWorks 24.0.4 (6 August 2024) Bug fix: FlowToItem was not behaving correctly when an item buffer was used. Bug fix: Fixed a timing issue when FlowToItem got starved while an item was being released. Bug fix: Fixed some rounding issues in event scheduling. Bug fix: Fixed Quick Properties product combo when product has been deleted. Bug fix: Missing states 19 and 20 added to state profile. Bug fix: Fixed several issues in FlowConveyor visualization. Bug fix: Invalid curved FlowConveyor animation fixed. Bug fix: Invalid initial content for Segmented Pipe fixed. Bug fix: "FlowConveyor content changes are not allowed" error (and subsequent exception) fixed. Improvment: Curved conveyor now also supports FlowConveyor length property. Improvement: Tank label hidden in FlowItems (FlowVessel and FlowTruck). Improvement: Cleaned up the variables in the FlowItems' model tree. Improvement: Tank size/position and max content changed for FlowTruck, also as FlowTaskExecuter. Improvement: Slight optimization in preventing unnecessary FlowControl events. Improvement: Added SetMaxContent for FlowToItem and improved handling for Flow Tanks. FloWorks 24.0.3 (17 April 2024) QuickProperties behavior improved. Fixed invalid manual references. Fixed missing code completion documentation. FloWorks 24.0.2 (6 March 2024) Made activity path references in warning message more clear. Restore missing Flow Trigger Process Flow activities to the library. Fixed Tank level indicator settings for some tank shapes. Add Accumulating checkbox to the Conveyor properties. FloWorks 24.0.1 (5 February 2024) Added vertical splitter to Mixer recipe editor and other small layout improvements. Fixed missing icons in statistics panel pin menus. Flow Polygon Tank property panels fixed and documentation updated. Added "Fill Sideways" property for Flow Polygon Tank. IsMultiProduct setting on Flow Tank is now a proper property. Renamed Flow Tank shapes from Cylindric and Rectangular to Tank and Container, respectively. Fixed "Copy Production Plan" button in Flow To Item properties. Some objects were not correctly reset. ItemToFlow statistics were accessible through .output instead of .input . Breaking changes: Deprecated the input.triggerAmount , input.triggerInterval , output.triggerAmount , and output.triggerInterval properties. FlowObject.stats.input and FlowObject.stats.output now return a Tracked Variable. Cylindric level indicator now expects size of bounding box instead of center and radius. The update script will try to convert these for you. FloWorks 24.0.0 (14 January 2024) All bug fixes in FloWorks 23.0.5 below. Improved warning and error messages throughout Fixed rounding issue in Mass Flow Conveyor

FlexSim 2025 Update 1 is now available for download. You can view the Release Notes in the online user manual. FlexSim 25.1.0 Release Notes For more in-depth discussion of the new features, check out the official software release page: FlexSim 2025 Update 1: Change Object Class, Exports, AGVs, Timed Travel, and more If you have bug reports or other feedback on the software, please create a new post in the Bug Report space or Development space.

RailWorks 25.0.1 is now available (19 March 2025). This version of RailWorks is intended for use with FlexSim 2025. All versions can be found in the Downloads section of your FlexSim account on the 3rd party modules tab. Please do not hesitate to report any bugs, usability improvements and feature requests to developmentbrflexsim@flexsbr.com.br. Rail Network: New feature in RailWorks The Rail Network feature provides users with an intuitive and efficient way to design and connect railway systems. With a user-friendly interface, this tool enables seamless track placement, automatic node linking, and real-time validation to ensure smooth rail operations. Users can quickly define routes, junctions, and stations while leveraging smart snapping and alignment aids to simplify complex track layouts. This feature is designed for both beginners and advanced users, offering powerful tools to build scalable and efficient rail networks with minimal effort. New Speed Table: New feature in RailWorks Offering more speed possibilities to configurate all the movement parameters, the new speed table covers all movement speeds, acceleration and deceleration parameters, making the model more plausible and adherent to the real world process. About Railworks The FlexSim Brazil RailWorks module consists of premade custom objects, designed to represent a real environment for the Rail problem modeling, with less configuration. Our approach is to unite 3D modeling with the Process Flow functionality, allowing object configuration and visualization through the native 3D FlexSim solution, and the rail system events to be triggered by the Process Flow, using not only defaults FlexSim Process Flow activities, but also new ones developed by our team. Release Notes View the full release notes in the online documentation. RailWorks 25.0.1 (19 March 2025) Features Feature: Rail Network A new way to create and connect your rails into the model. Simple as network nodes, now you can connect the RailNetwork nodes and easily create your own rail tracks. Feature: New Speed table Offering more speed possibilities to configurate all the movement parameters, the new speed table covers all movement speeds, acceleration and deceleration parameters, making the model more plausible and adherent to the real world process. Bug-Fixes Fixed moveWagon auto decouple operation. Fixed a bug where SendToPortal was not freeing rails. RailWorks 24.2.7 (17 January 2025) Bug-Fixes Fixed moveWagon auto decouple operation. Fixed a bug where SendToPortal was not freeing rails. RailWorks 24.2.6 (17 October 2024) Bug-Fixes Improved couple and decouple internal operations. Improved offset calculations internal operations. Fixed a bug where all flowItem classes was the same in different stations. Fixed a bug with passenger locomotive. RailWorks 24.2.5 (25 September 2024) Bug-Fixes Fixed a bug on creating Station object.

FlexSim 2025 Update 1 Beta is now available. FlexSim 25.1.0 Release Notes To get the beta, log in to your account at https://account.flexsim.com, then go to the Downloads section, and click on More Versions. It will be at the top of the list. The More Versions button does not appear when logged in as a guest account. The beta is available only to licensed accounts and accounts that have a license shared with them. Learn more about downloading the best version of FlexSim for your license here. If you have bug reports or other feedback on the software, please create a new post in the Bug Report space or Development space.

Attached is an example model and user library comprising commands to return an array of objects whose bounding boxes intersect, and a Collision Detection object to drop into your model. The Collision Detection has a ticker interval label to adjust the frequency of checks and will switch the colliding objects to selected. It looks for two groups - "Obstacles" containing static objects in the scene (which may be overlapping and not recorded as collisions) and "Colliders" which are the objects navigating the scene and should be checked for intersecting bounding boxes. In the example model I'm adding the flowitem when it is created using Group("Colliders").addMember(item) The detector code is on its FlexScript label, 'analyseScene', which is first scheduled to run by the object's reset trigger. collisionDetection3.fsm BBCollisionDetection2.fsl

Dear FlexSim user, Update: Please see the FlexSim Newsroom announcement here: FlexSim Answers to migrate to Autodesk Forums on April 25 | FlexSim Original First and foremost, thank you for being an active and valued member of our forum. Your contributions help make this community a valuable resource for everyone, and we truly appreciate your participation. As you may know, FlexSim was acquired by Autodesk in late 2023. As part of this transition, we will be migrating some of our tools, including this forum, to a new platform which we expect to be completed by May 2025. You will be able to access Autodesk forums here. What This Means for You: Seamless Knowledge Transfer – All existing forum content will be migrated, ensuring continued access to the wealth of knowledge shared by our community. A Community-Driven Experience – The forum will evolve into a more self-sustaining, peer-to-peer support hub. While FlexSim support engineers will still visit the forum, when possible, our goal is to empower users to help each other, making this a truly community-led space. Ongoing Support for Entitled Users – We will share more details soon on how eligible users can reach the FlexSim support team directly. For now, we encourage you to continue engaging with the forum as you always have. Your involvement is what makes this community thrive, and we’re excited to embark on this new chapter together. Stay tuned for more updates and thank you for being an essential part of FlexSim! Best, The FlexSim Team

Node-locked Node-locked can only be activated once. Be sure that you install the license where you would like it to be installed for the next year. FlexSim can assist with one migration for extenuating circumstances, such as a crashed computer, but there will be fees for any additional migrations. Please contact us to receive assistance with moving your license. Transferable There is no limit to the number of times a license seat can be activated and returned. Please reference other articles or our documentation for further information about licensing.

If you have a contiguous conveyor network you can just route items using Conveyor.sendItem() and FlexSim will guide the item to the destination, passing through inline and side transfers as required for the shortest path. If between some conveyors you use exit and entry transfers, perhaps to easily add elevators and shuttles as transports between them - then you'll normally be faced with adding logic to figure out which exit transfer to go to and which port to take from that transfer - and in a large model that logic can be extensive and hard to maintain. The attached model and library provides commands for automated routing through multiple conveyor sub-sections connected through exit/entry transfers, to conveyor points and to connected fixed resources. This means that you may no longer have to write sendTo code with case statements on each exitTransfer to determine which port an item should exit through – nor possibly need to have decision points with case logic to decide the destination for Conveyor.sendItem(). In the example model three sources create items with random destinations which are routed through the conveyor system, transfers and port automatically to arrive at the correct destinations – some of the ports having transport to perform the move. To make this work in any model you should load the user library which will auto-install a set of user commands and a General Process Flow. The first step is to run the user command ‘createAllTravelMaps()’ which will calculate all the reachable destinations (decision points, stations, pes, attached fixed resources and transfers) from all the conveyor points and entry/exit transfers) along with estimates of the conveytime (from the conveyor class). This information consolidated to create the shortest routes and is stored in a label ‘travelMap’ on each decision point, station, pe and transfer. To make use of the travelMap data there are three additional user commands supplied that are intended to be used directly by the modeller: getNextConveyPoint(thispoint, destination) – returns the next point to send an item to from this point in order to ultimately reach the destination. getConveyExitPort(exitTransfer, destination) – returns the port through which an item should exit the exitTransfer in order to reach the destination. getConveyItemsNextConveyPoint(item, destination) – returns the next point to which an item should travel to reach the destination from its current position on a conveyor. The simple process flow in the example and library is set to listen to the Group members of EntryTransfers and ExitTransfers in order to lookup the ‘destination’ label and either sends the item to the next point or in the case of the exit transfers, overrides the sendTo port with the value from the map. I’ve added some documentation to the user commands which you can access easily via the command helper: ConveyorTravelMaps_0.3.fsl ConveyorTravelMapExample.fsm You may find createTravelMaps() takes a while which is why a progress bar has been added. You may not need all points to be evaluated exhaustively so the option to pass in a flag indicating to only start evaluation from Entry Transfers is given, which will create somewhat incomplete maps for intermediate points. A future refinement would be to account for transport time from exit transfers either by recording the times or providing port list with the expected times. Clearly if you make changes to your transfer positions or conveyor layout you should rerun createAllTravelMaps.

Intersection with traffic lights in an AGV network This model aims to showcase how allocations of control areas can be manually controlled to achieve more complex logic than the default “first come first serve” implementation. It depicts a four-way road intersection with arriving cars being able to continue in any of the three other directions. Cars driving straight on or turning right use the right lane, cars turning left use the left lane and must give way to oncoming traffic. Traffic lights manage which cars are allowed to enter the intersection at any given time. AGV network and general concept In order to understand the logic behind it, let’s first look at how the AGV network is setup. In the screenshot below we deactivated the visualization of the roads to show the paths and areas more clearly. For each of the four directions there are two incoming paths and one outgoing path. Control points (red) are placed on the incoming paths at the points where cars must stop (based on object center) when the light is red. A single, large control area that control the entry is placed such that is encompasses the entire intersection. Within this control area, an additional control point is placed on each of the left turning paths (orange). This is the location where left turning vehicles must wait for the oncoming lane to be clear. To enforce this the four smaller, rectangular control areas are used. The lane turning left and both the straight and right turning lane coming from the other direction pass through one of these areas. We will later explain how the straight and right turning cars are given priority to allocate these areas, resulting in cars wanting to turn left having to wait until no other allocation requests are present. As all paths are one-way and the geometry is pretty simple, all things considered, the distance between cars is handled by an accumulation behaviour set on the paths. The logic controlling the vehicles is very simple. If we zoom out, we can see that cars leaving the intersection in any direction eventually just turn around and return. At the turning points control points are placed that serve as the travel destination for the cars. A Process Flow with one token per car randomly chooses the next destination when the previous travel task is finished and sends the car there. The cars will automatically use the correct lanes, since those are the shortest paths to reach their destination. For the intersection logic each combination of origin and destination (meaning every possible way of crossing the intersection) is represented as a number. These numbers are stored as global macros for ease of use. The letters represent the four cardinal directions (north, west, south, east). For example, using the intersection to travel from east to west would be represented by the ‘mode’ number 4. At the same time as a new destination is chosen for the car, the respective mode number is also written to a label on the car. In the logic that controls entries into the intersection, these modes are used to identify which vehicles are allowed to enter. Powers of two are used, so the numbers can simply be added together to get a single number that encodes which lights are green. The light phases are defined in a global table. One of the simplest sensible configurations is shown below. At first, all lights are red (no entries in the “Green” columns) for 5 seconds. Then all cars coming from the west and east directions receive a green light for 20 seconds. This is followed by another 5s of all red lights and finally the other directions are allowed to move on. The table is then repeated from the top. The phase in line two would be represented as mode 1365 (1 + 4 + 16 + 64 + 256 + 1024). This becomes a lot more obvious when the mode is written in binary: 0000 0101 0101 0101 Each bit represents one of the possible directions. Allocation logic explained The control area is set to allow 0 concurrent allocations. Meaning for a request to actually result in an allocation, we need to override the return value of the “On Request” event of the control area. This happens in the control logic for the intersection that is implemented as an Object Process Flow linked to the control area. An Event-Triggered Source reacts to the On Request event and writes a reference to the “Allocator” (meaning the car/AGV) to a label on the token. Note that the “Will Override Return Value” box is checked. The token then enters a Finish activity in whose “Return Value” field the current traffic mode of the control area is compared to the mode of the requesting car. The “&” is the bitwise-and-operator. It goes through both numbers bit by bit. If the bit at a given position is 1 in both numbers, it will also be 1 in the returned value, 0 otherwise. If the mode of the car is part of the current traffic mode (which is a sum of such modes) the result will be the mode. This non-zero number is interpreted as “true” in the if-condition and the return value of the code is to allow the request to go through. Otherwise, the request is blocked. (The “Allow” and “Block” properties return 1 and -1, respectively.) The second part of the Process Flow is a loop with a single token that reads the next traffic mode from the global table. It then ‘announces’ which phase the intersection will enter next, so that the draw logic of the traffic light objects can start the process of switching from red to green or vice versa if needed. After a delay, in which those lights would show yellow, the current phase of the control area is updated. The same code that updates the label then also searches for cars that are now allowed to enter the intersection among the pending allocation requests. Since, as far as I could tell, there is currently no direct method to refire an allocation request, those cars receive a pre-empting task sequence that uses a break task to immediately return to the previously active sequence. The restart of their travel task then causes them to try to allocate the control area again. After waiting the duration assigned to the current traffic phase, the token once more updates the mode of the intersection to an ‘intermediate’ mode. This mode is the result of another bit-wise comparison of the current and the next mode. This allows lights that need to change to red to do so, while lights that stay green remain unchanged. Once the next phase is activated, additional lights might then become green. If the next phase doesn’t have any green lights, all lights will already be red in the intermediate mode, meaning the Process Flow block that updates the mode can be skipped and the token instead just waits out the duration in the “All Red Duration” Delay activity. The logic that makes left turning vehicles give way to oncoming traffic works in a similar way. It is also implemented as an Object Process Flow, linked to the four smaller control areas within the intersection. These areas allow a single allocation by default and also have a “Mode” label. But it’s not set based on a timer and otherwise static. Instead, these areas start in mode 0 and if a request is made while the area is empty, the allocation is always allowed, and the mode is set to match that of the allocator. When another request is made, the areas mode is compared with that of the new requesting car. If they match, the request can potentially be granted. First however, the code searches other pending requests for a mode with a higher priority than that of the current request. (The mode numbers are assigned in the order straight < right turn < left turn, so they can also be used as a priority value, where lower is better.) If such a request is found, the current one is blocked, to allow for the area to empty. At that point, a token created by a source listening to the “On Deallocated” event of the control area will reset the mode of the area to 0 and sort any pending requests by priority, before those get re-evaluated. In summary, this logic allows an arbitrary number of cars with the same mode to enter the area. As soon as a higher priority request that can’t immediately enter is created, other requests are blocked; they must ‘give way’. Visualization and parameters The traffic lights are BasicFR objects that draw colored circles as lights in their On Draw trigger, depending on a label. That label is updated in the On Message trigger whenever the intersection changes its phase. The roads are drawn along the AGV paths in the On Draw code of a dummy object placed to the side of the intersection. How wide and in what interval the white lines are drawn is determined by Array labels on the paths containing all necessary parameters. The model comes with five parameters: The first controls which table is used to determine the traffic light phases, the second and third set the time it takes a light to switch from red to green and green to red. The fourth sets the number of cars and the final one switches the visualization of the left turn lights to arrows. agv-traffic-mode-intersection.fsm

FloWorks 25.0.1 is now available (21 January). This version of FloWorks is intended for use with FlexSim 2025 (LTS). If you are using FloWorks with FlexSim 2024, please update to FloWorks version 24.0.7. If you are using FloWorks with FlexSim 2024 Update 2, please update to FloWorks version 24.2.1. All versions can be found in the Downloads section of your FlexSim account on the 3rd party modules tab. Please do not hesitate to report any bugs, usability improvements and feature requests to support@talumis.com. About FloWorks FloWorks is a 3rd party module developed and maintained by Talumis BV (talumis.com). It provides faster and more accurate modelling and calculation of fluid systems than the default FlexSim fluid library. It is especially useful within the oil, gas, and bulk industry both for production and supply chain optimization. This module requires a FloWorks license with active maintenance. For any questions, please email support@talumis.com. Release notes View the full release notes in the online documentation. FloWorks 25.0.1 (21 January 2025) FloWorks was not loading correctly in FlexSim 25.0.2. FlexSim Compatibility Note: This release of FloWorks is for FlexSim 25.0.2 and higher versions. It may not work with FlexSim 25.0.1 and earlier. FloWorks 25.0.0 (19 December 2024) Improvement: FlowConveyor can be reversed. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.2.1 below. FloWorks 24.2.1 (19 December 2024) Improvement: Made Disconnect Flow Objects properties more clear. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.6 below. FloWorks 24.2.0 (6 August 2024) Bug fix: removed flicker due to unnecessary repaint in ApplyImpactFactor QuickProperties panel. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.4 below. FloWorks 24.1.1 (6 August 2024) Bug fix: removed flicker due to unnecessary repaint in ApplyImpactFactor QuickProperties panel. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.4 below. FloWorks 24.1.0 (17 April 2024) Feature: new "Apply Impact Factor" activity in ProcessFlow. Feature: new "Connect Flow Objects" and "Disconnect Flow Objects" activities in ProcessFlow. All bug fixes in FloWorks 24.0.3 below. FloWorks 24.0.7 (21 January 2025) FloWorks was not loading correctly in FlexSim 24.0.8. FlexSim Compatibility Note: This release of FloWorks is for FlexSim 24.0.8 and higher versions. For FlexSim 24.0.7 and earlier, please use FloWorks 24.0.7. FloWorks 24.0.6 (19 December 2024) Bug fix: Flow Mixer stops with error when pulling product from an invalid port. Bug fix: Reactor vessel shape was not correctly upgraded to 24.0 from older versions. Bug fix: FlowConveyor content visualization was incorrect. Bug fix: SharedResource showed exception and didn't work correctly. Improvement: Impact events can be resumed with a Variant id identifier instead of treenode eventObject . Improvement: Fixed many incorrect tooltips in the FloWorks ProcessFlow activities. FloWorks 24.0.5 (27 August 2024) Bug fix: Version 24.0.4 installer contained an incorrect module (.t) file Bug fix: Removed ProcessFlow activities which are only available from 24.1 from the drag/drop library FloWorks 24.0.4 (6 August 2024) Bug fix: FlowToItem was not behaving correctly when an item buffer was used. Bug fix: Fixed a timing issue when FlowToItem got starved while an item was being released. Bug fix: Fixed some rounding issues in event scheduling. Bug fix: Fixed Quick Properties product combo when product has been deleted. Bug fix: Missing states 19 and 20 added to state profile. Bug fix: Fixed several issues in FlowConveyor visualization. Bug fix: Invalid curved FlowConveyor animation fixed. Bug fix: Invalid initial content for Segmented Pipe fixed. Bug fix: "FlowConveyor content changes are not allowed" error (and subsequent exception) fixed. Improvment: Curved conveyor now also supports FlowConveyor length property. Improvement: Tank label hidden in FlowItems (FlowVessel and FlowTruck). Improvement: Cleaned up the variables in the FlowItems' model tree. Improvement: Tank size/position and max content changed for FlowTruck, also as FlowTaskExecuter. Improvement: Slight optimization in preventing unnecessary FlowControl events. Improvement: Added SetMaxContent for FlowToItem and improved handling for Flow Tanks. FloWorks 24.0.3 (17 April 2024) QuickProperties behavior improved. Fixed invalid manual references. Fixed missing code completion documentation. FloWorks 24.0.2 (6 March 2024) Made activity path references in warning message more clear. Restore missing Flow Trigger Process Flow activities to the library. Fixed Tank level indicator settings for some tank shapes. Add Accumulating checkbox to the Conveyor properties. FloWorks 24.0.1 (5 February 2024) Added vertical splitter to Mixer recipe editor and other small layout improvements. Fixed missing icons in statistics panel pin menus. Flow Polygon Tank property panels fixed and documentation updated. Added "Fill Sideways" property for Flow Polygon Tank. IsMultiProduct setting on Flow Tank is now a proper property. Renamed Flow Tank shapes from Cylindric and Rectangular to Tank and Container, respectively. Fixed "Copy Production Plan" button in Flow To Item properties. Some objects were not correctly reset. ItemToFlow statistics were accessible through .output instead of .input . Breaking changes: Deprecated the input.triggerAmount , input.triggerInterval , output.triggerAmount , and output.triggerInterval properties. FlowObject.stats.input and FlowObject.stats.output now return a Tracked Variable. Cylindric level indicator now expects size of bounding box instead of center and radius. The update script will try to convert these for you. FloWorks 24.0.0 (14 January 2024) All bug fixes in FloWorks 23.0.5 below. Improved warning and error messages throughout Fixed rounding issue in Mass Flow Conveyor

Requirements FlexSim 25.0 or later (found in the downloads page) NVIDIA's Omniverse USD Composer Background Historically, users have used USD Stages in FlexSim to create a live connection with an Omniverse application to be able to simulate animations in Omniverse. However, this relies on a live connection between FlexSim and Omniverse. Sometimes this type of connection is sub-optimal for a user's situation. This article will explain a workflow for writing animation data to a USD file to play in an Omniverse application independent from FlexSim. Disclaimer All the data we record during this example is meant to help us write meaningful data into a .usd file so we can generate an animation in USD Composer. When I say "animation", I mean positional and rotational data along with showing/hiding flowitems. If you want to see Operator Skeletal Animations, I'll post a similar article with a few tweaks later to showcase how to do that using USD Composer's Sequencer, which uses Tracks and Asset Clips to handle small-scale skeletal animations. Example Model I've built a sample model demonstrating the changes to the USD API and how to use them. This example model is just one way to use the API -- there are other ways that users are free to explore. example_model.zip Explaining the Model When you open the model, you'll see a few different windowpanes. In the top-right corner, you'll see a Global Table. If you reset the model, you'll see column headings appear. Each column is a different piece of data we'll be writing to the USD Stage. Each row is a different entry of data to write. In the center views, you'll have a 3D view on the left side and a Process Flow (PF) on the right. At the bottom, there's a script window with a few lines of code. Those lines of code are User Commands I defined to summarize the functionality they encapsulate. The 3D View In the 3D view, you should see some queues, processors, operators, and conveyors. This is a simple workflow where items come into the queues, operators move them into the processors for processing, and then the operators send them down the conveyor lines. With this model, we'll demonstrate (1) operator movement and (2) flowitem movement on conveyors. Setting Up the USD Stage There should be a "USD Stage1" present in the model. If you click on the USD Stage, its properties will appear on the right-side of the screen. In it, you'll see a blank edit field. This is where you put the path to the USD file you want to work on have appear. If you want to save a fresh one, while the edit field is blank, click the "Save" icon next to it. Once you select where you want to place the file, name it, and close the file explorer popup, the edit field should populate with the full path to the .usd file. For more info, you can check out the docs page on the USD Stage object. Viewing the Model in USD Composer Once you've saved your USD Stage, you can open the .usd file in any software that can view .usd files. For this demonstration, we'll be using NVIDIA's Omniverse application which as a USD Composer module. The Process Flow Open up the Process Flow tab to view the simple setup. I'll walk through each part of the PF to give you an idea of how it works. Operator Movement This block of PF is in charge of recording information about Operator positions and rotations. It records information whenever an Operator starts and ends a task. You can expound on this concept and record information when specific triggers or events happen, but for this example I kept it simple and record when any task happens. User Command: RecordInfoToTable Within the "Record Info" Activity, it calls a User Command to record information to the table. This function simply takes a token as the first parameter. This is what the code looks like: Token token = param(1); // Setup row for this iteration Table animInfo = Table("AnimationInfo"); animInfo.addRow(); int curRow = animInfo.numRows; token.labels.assert("Row", 1).value = curRow; animInfo[curRow]["Object"] = token.operator; animInfo[curRow]["AnimTime"] = Model.time; animInfo[curRow]["TaskType"] = token.taskType; // Record positional and rotational data Object operator = token.operator.as(Object); animInfo[curRow]["PosX"] = operator.location.x; animInfo[curRow]["PosY"] = operator.location.y; animInfo[curRow]["PosZ"] = operator.location.z; double Z = Math.fmod(operator.rotation.z, 360); if (Z < 0) Z += 360; animInfo[curRow]["RotX"] = operator.rotation.x; animInfo[curRow]["RotY"] = operator.rotation.y; animInfo[curRow]["RotZ"] = Z; To summarize: Start by assigning the value of the token (parameter 1) to the local variable "token" We get a reference to the Global Table (AnimationInfo) and add a row for the data we're about to write Record (1) which operator this data is for, (2) what time this is happening, (3) and the type of task they're performing. The task type isn't as important - it's for finer details and debugging if necessary. Then we record the positional data of the operator. We previously saved the "operator" label onto the token, so we can use that and "cast" it to be an Object. We do this because the Object class has a "location" property which holds the x, y, z coordinates of the object. Lastly, we do the same thing with "rotation", except we need to bound the rotation to be a positive number between 0 and 360. To do this, we call Math.fmod() to get the reminder after dividing by 360. If the value is negative, we add 360 to get a positive value. Running the Model If you reset and run the model to the stop time at 200, you'll see the Global Table populate with data. There should be valid data for all the columns except the last 3. The "BoxNum", "EntryConveyor", and "Show" columns are for recording flowitem data. We'll discuss that later. Once you've got data in the table, we can run the User Commands in the script window at the bottom of the screen. They should be: ClearTimestampedData(); return WriteToUsd(); The first one "ClearTimestampedData()" is used to loop through the operators and clear all their time-sampled data. We do this so no old data is used if you change things in the FlexSim model and export new data. The second one "WriteToUsd()" is what reads the Global Table line by line, defines and finds prims, writes time-sampled data to them, and saves the information to the .usd file. View the Animation in USD Composer After running these scripts, you should get a prompt in USD Composer to "Fetch Changes". Fetch the changes. Then, open the Timeline feature (Window > Animation > Timeline). This opens an animation timeline at the bottom of the screen. You can save predefined start and end times for the whole stage using the Flexscript API if you choose. Otherwise, you can change the settings manually in USD Composer. (I've color-coded the image below to help explain the tool.) On the far-left (green circle) is the starting frame of the animation while the far-right (red circle) is the ending frame. The inner numbers allow you to set specific sections of the animation to play. If not set, it will play the whole animation. The top-right value and blue "scrubber" (blue circle and arrow) denote the current frame. When you hit your space-bar (or click the "Play" button), that scrubber should move. The value next to FPS (yellow circle) represents the "Frames per Second" the animation runs at. If you want it to play faster, then you can set it to a higher FPS. Note that this example model is built assuming 24 FPS. There is a User Command "TimeToFPS" that simply multiples the given Model time by a desired FPS, defaulting to 24 FPS. If you want to change that rate, you can set it in the code. Now that we've got the animation timeline setup, hit play and watch the animation. You may need to adjust the animation range to be 850 to 4800 so you can see the movements. Like I mentioned in the Disclaimer, if you want to see skeletal animations in the Operator, I'll have another article explaining how to add that functionality. Add Flowitem Movement on the Conveyor Let's go back to FlexSim and check out the Process Flow again. I have two other containers labeled "Box Movement: Time-based" and "Box Movement: DPs". These flows represent two different ways to record this data: either based on a time interval or based on Decision Point positions. The time-based way can be more accurate, but it adds much more time-sample data than the DP version. Choose one of the versions to test out, open the properties of their Source, and then Enable it. If you reset and run the model, you'll start seeing entries for Flowitems. They'll utilize the last 3 columns of the Global Table to keep track of (1) the Box# they are, (2) the Conveyor they entered on, and (3) whether or not to "show" their prim. Click here to learn more about prim visibility. Run the scripts to export and save the model. Then, fetch and view the changes in USD Composer. Conclusion We've covered how to use some of the new features of the USD API in FlexSim 25.0 to create stand-alone animations in .usd files. We used FlexSim to record and export data to .usd files to then display in USD Composer. You can now play a standalone animation in USD Composer without a live connection to FlexSim.

FlexSim 2025 is now available for download. You can view the Release Notes in the online user manual. FlexSim 25.0.0 Release Notes For more in-depth discussion of the new features, check out the official software release page: FlexSim 2025: Container Object, Task Sequence Queue, and more If you have bug reports or other feedback on the software, please create a new post in the Bug Report space or Development space.

This article describes an example of Reinforcement Learning being used to solve scheduling problems. See the model and python files in the attached zip file. SchedulingRL.zip Problem Description This model represents a generic sheet metal processing plant. There are four machines in series. Each job requires time on all four machines. Jobs come in batches of 10. A poor sequence of jobs will cause blocking between items, lowering throughput. If the time between batches is long, such as a shift or a day, you could use the optimizer to determine the best sequence. If the time between batches is short, however, the optimizer may not be feasible. For real sequencing problems, the time to find a good sequence can be anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, or even longer. This makes it impractical for high-velocity situations. The attached model requests a decision every time the first machine in the series is available. The only action is an index for the Nth available job. So the decision can be interpreted as "which job should I do next?" Solution The general solution is to use reinforcement learning. However, this problem required customized python scripts: The model uses custom parameters for observations. This allows arbitrary values for observations. The model uses a custom observation space. The observations include a table of the required times at each station for the remaining jobs. They also include an array of the in-progress jobs and their predicted remaining times. By using a Dict space, the python scripts can combine all the observations into a single space. The model uses an Action Mask. An Action Mask is a binary array with one value per value of the action. This tells the RL algorithm about invalid options. The python scripts require the sb3-contrib package. Use pip install sb3-contrib to install it. Results After training for 500k time-steps, the agent learns to choose jobs moderately well. If you run the inference script, you can use the experimenter to compare a random policy to a trained agent:

This model is a proof-of-concept example demonstrating the integration of FlexSim with Python's Pyomo package to solve the Knapsack Problem. The model simulates a loading process of a logistic company. The truck has a weight capacity of 200 kg. The scenario includes 15 products, each with a specific weight and value. The product details are as follows: The objective is to determine which products to load onto the truck to maximize the total value of goods while ensuring the total weight does not exceed 200 kg. The ProductCreation Process Flow creates the products in a Queue. The General Process Flow has a Custom Code that creates a couple of Maps to store the products weights and values. It sets the capacity variable from the Parameters Table. These three parameters can be passed to python. Then it evaluates KnapsackProblem label on the Process Flow, passing those parameters in. The label is configured to connect to the KnapsackProblem function defined in the KnapsackProblem.py module. This function formulates the Knapsack Problem with Pyomo, solves the program, and then returns the optimal collection of products to be load onto the truck. Since the Decision Variables are binary, once the products are resolved, the values are stored in a Global Table, where 1 means that the product was selected. A Combiner uses this table to set the Component List. A forklift load the products and once completed, the truck leaves. When it enters the Sink a message is displayed showing the total weight and value loaded. Model Parameters There are two parameters that can be changed in this model. One is the Truck Capacity, which is the constraint of this problem. The value ranges from 100 to 300. There are three Global Tables in this model that store a different set of Weights and Values for each products. The table selected for the problem can also be changed using the GUI. Potential additions to this model could use priority for the products or include multiple trucks or constraints such as volume. Requirements to run the model In order to run this model, you need python properly configured, including: Install one of these python versions: 3.9, 3.10, 3.11 Install pyomo and highspy packages: python -m pip install pyomo highspy Make sure the python directory is part of your PATH environment variable. Configure your Global Preferences (the Code tab) to use the associated python version. This model was built in FlexSim 24.0 Knapsack_Problem.zip Troubleshooting If you are getting this error: exception: Code Binding Error: could not bind to function Node: /Tools/ProcessFlow/ProcessFlow>labels/KnapsackProblem Binding string: /**external python: */ /**/"KnapsackProblem"/**/ /** \nfunction name:*/ /**/"KnapsackProblem"/**/ Windows Error Code : 126 Check this post

At the current release state 2024.2.2 FlexSim does not provide a tool to export an animated USD stage of a model. There is a way around though by recording the FlexSim model connected to a NVidia Omniverse live session using one of the tools in NVidia’s USD Composer, the Animation Stage Recorder. This is a step-by-step tutorial to guide you through the process. It is assumed, when you are interested in this you already know how to connect FlexSim to a live session in NVidia Omniverse. This may not be ther perfect way to go, but it worked for me. Record_Animated_Stage_from_FlexSim.pdf