Subject: Modeling software

Posted by John F. Heinbokel on 6/17/2010
In Reply To:Modeling software Posted by Jon Darkow on 6/17/2010

Message:

Jon,

In the past we have found Mapsys (Simtegra) to be a very useful (and previously free for educators) software package – especially for building causal loop diagrams, which it does more usefully than does STELLA. It has one other advantage over STELLA (besides educator price which I believe is now $19.95 for version 3) in that each individual building block can be customized as to font (size, bold/italic etc, and color) and ‘weight’ of the graphic. When creating illustrations where a particular portion of the model needs to be emphasized, that’s a very useful feature. In those regards, I think it’s more like Vensim than STELLA. The deficit is that relatively few folks use it and there are few accumulated models available for use; virtually anything you would need would need to be created.

John F. Heinbokel

Follow Ups:

Modeling software - Michel Lutz 6/17/2010