This modeling guide is intended to introduce some of the basic concepts of building and using models and provide a number of examples to improve understanding. If you are new to Vensim you should first work through the Vensim User’s Guide..
Each chapter in this Guide contains a model, or set of models, which you can build as you work through the chapter.
There are very few mechanical instructions for building models in this guide. If you are having trouble, you might want to go back to the User’s Guide and find the instructions for building a similar structure.
The Models
The Modeling Guide models will normally install into the ModelGuide subdirectory of the Models subdirectory of the Vensim help installation. (See Models that Come with Vensim).
Under the ModelGuide directory there are subdirectories for each chapter in this guide. The directories are numbered with the Chapter number, followed by a brief shorthand for what the model or models are about. The directories are:
| • | 1Fundam - the fundamental structure examples from Chapter 1. |
| • | 2WFINV - the workforce-inventory example from Chapter 2. |
| • | 3PROJ - the project models developed in Chapter 3. |
| • | 4GROW - models dealing with growth and diffusion discussed in Chapter 4. |
| • | 5cap - models dealing with capacity adjustment in a growing market discussed in Chapter 5. |
| • | 6comp - models dealing with competitive dynamics discussed in Chapter 6. These models make use of subscripts. |
| • | 7fin - models of financial variables linked to the emerging market model discussed in Chapter 7. |
| • | 8osc - other examples of oscillating structures. A pendulum model and a model of a furnace discussed in Chapter 8. |
| • | 9discret models incorporating discrete functions detailed in Chapter 9. |
We strongly recommend that you copy these directories to a working location in your control, outside the help path. This will prevent system permission problems and loss of work when Vensim updates the help files.
