The Inspector .NET add-on helps understand simulation state and behavior by showing detailed information about simulation objects. The focus is on read-only access to information which is not easily accessible from VC Premium’s user interface.
The Inspector can be used to see things like details of PM product matching and flow, full simulation node hierarchy, C# properties of any .NET API object etc.
Video explaining the core concepts and use:
Gadgets included in the first release:
PM product: Show basic info and flow state, visualize current transport solution of product instance.
PM product matcher: Collects and visualizes product need and feed matches in layout. Visualizes matches, pending product needs and feeds in 3D overlay.
Object bounds: Show dimensions of any IVisualObject bounding volume.
Dynamic component: Shows parent component and component container of simulation runtime component.
Object hierarchy: Shows full simulation node (ISimNode) hierarchy tree, including dynamic components, and component internals.
Property container: Shows searchable & inspectable list of names and values of IProperties from any IPropertyContainer.
.NET API object: Shows C# properties of any API object organized by interface.
Inspectable collection: Lists contents of any .NET IEnumerable collection and allows inspecting the values.
The inspector add-on is only available for Visual Components 4.9.1 (released 29th Aug 2024) and newer.
Extract the Plugin.Inspector.Bootstrap.dll to your Visual Components installation directory, then run VC.
Inspector version 2.0 with advanced search is now out!
Inspector version 2.0 adds a powerful advanced search feature. It can find text from almost anywhere deep in the simulation layout and presents the results in a convenient tree structure with context such as parent component.
The search also provides few different ways to utilize the results, like copying values or automatically opening the appropriate VC UI for editing the found object.
Major features
Deep search of simulation objects, including:
Static and dynamic component internals
Python scripts
Expressions
PM and robot statements
PM objects such as product types and assemblies
Reference properties
etc.
Contains, wildcards, and regex search.
“Goto” which opens the appropriate UI for viewing and editing a found object.
Powerful advanced filtering of results using a tree grid control
Limitations
Can’t find anything from add-ons such as VC OLP or KUKA.Sim add-on. These have their own internal data models of which the inspector can’t know anything.
The search uses APIs not available in VC Essentials, so the Inspector add-on is not available for that anymore.
The search is based on matching extracted text values, so finding combinations or numerical values such as e.g. “Objects that have a property with certain value” can be tricky.
What areas of simulation the inspector search covers can now be controlled in much finer detail, which helps filter out unwanted results. This version also further expands the search scope with a generic API traverser and text extractors which come with some compromises and are disabled by default.
