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GANetXL Evolutionary Optimisation for Microsoft Excel. J.Bicik, M.S.Morley, E.C.Keedwell & D.A.Savić. Presentation Outline. General description Structure & features of the application Definition of the optimisation problem Live demonstration Software & hardware requirements
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GANetXL Evolutionary Optimisation for Microsoft Excel J.Bicik, M.S.Morley, E.C.Keedwell & D.A.Savić
Presentation Outline General description Structure & features of the application Definition of the optimisation problem Live demonstration Software & hardware requirements Getting GANetXL Future work
Description A user friendly add-in which integrates into Microsoft Excel Uses evolutionary algorithms to solve complex optimisation problems Interacts with Excel using COM interface
Existing Tools Evolver 4.0 (Palisade) Premium Solver Platform (Frontline Systems Inc.) OptWorks Excel (Pi Blue) GeneHunter(Ward Systems) Generator (NewLight Industries, Ltd.) xl bit(XLPert Enterprise) GenSheet (Inductive Solutions, Inc.)
Motivation The commercial software does not support multi-objective (MO) optimisation Use of existing GA library Flexibility Extensibility To let students get in touch with GAs Simple use Save money on buying software licenses
History GA Excel add-in (2003) by F. Zheng written in Pascal Single Objective Genetic Algorithms GenetXL (2004) written in C++ GA Library in Pascal SOGA + MOGA (NSGA-II) GANetXL (2007) written purely in C++
List of Features Single and multiple-objective optimisation techniques Support for integration with simulation packages Suspend, resume Multiple-objective results browser Batch runs User defined constraints & penalty multipliers
Features - Continued Automatic saving of population Backups of intermediate population Visualisation of results and progress Built-in help User manual
Defining the Problem Decision variables – Genes altered by GA within theirranges (x1,x2,x3,x4) must occupy continuous range Objective function(s) used to evaluate thefitness of solutions (formula in C6) Constraints used to limit values of objective function(s) (formula in C8)
Practical Examples Single-objective optimisation of an advertising campaing Multiple-objective optimisation of an advertising campaing Link with simulation software optimisation of the “NY tunnels” problem Benchmark Zitzler test T1 Another multiple-objective example demonstration of population backups
Supported Platforms Microsoft Windows Vista (not tested but should work) XP 2000 Microsoft Excel 2010 2007 2003 XP 2000
New features of Excel 2007 Supports multi-core CPUs The max. number of columns: extended from 256 to 16,384 The max. number of rows: extended from 65,536 to 1,048,576 Total amount of PC memory that Excel can use: extended from 1GB to maximum allowed by Windows
RegistrationDetails Registration + HW Identifier Serial Number Serial No. Licensing • Licenses are bound to specific computer • Serial number • contains expiration date • valid for limited number of days • chromosome size, population size • objectives count, generations count
Getting GANetXL Download GANetXL from following site: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/cws/ganetxl To obtain a license please follow the installation instructions: http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/cws/technology/ganetxl-addin/ganetxl-installation Support, reporting bugs and problems: Josef Bicik (j.bicik@exeter.ac.uk)
Future Work Add more multiple-objective algorithms MO Simulated Annealing ε-NSGA II Make the application multi-threaded Visualisation of more than 2 objectives Do more testing of the application Any other ideas?
Thank you for your attention! Questions & Discussion
Links Evolver 4.0 (Palisade)http://www.palisade-europe.com/evolver/ Premium Solver Platform (Frontline Systems Inc. )http://www.solver.com/xlsplatform.htm OptWorks Excel (Pi Blue)http://www.piblue.com/products/optworks_ex.html GeneHunter(Ward Systems)http://www.wardsystems.com/products.asp?p=genehunter Generator (NewLight Industries, Ltd.)http://www.nli-ltd.com/products/genetic_algorithms/generator.htm xl bit(XLPert Enterprise )http://www.xlpert.com/wxl%20bit.htm#gg1 GenSheet (Inductive Solutions, Inc.)http://www.inductive.com/softgen.htm GA Optimization for MS Excel(freeware)http://www.alexschreyer.net/projects/xloptim/index.php