To get the most out of this book
To get the most out of this book, you will need a solid, but basic, understanding of SysML. In addition, in order to create the models, you will require a modeling tool. The concepts here are expressed in SysML, so any standards-compliant SysML modeling tool can be used.
All the example models in this book are developed using the IBM Rhapsody modeling tool (Designer for Systems edition). To execute models and run simulations, you will need the Cygwin C++ compiler (available at https://www.cygwin.com), although other C++ compilers could be used instead, such as Visual C++. The computable parametrics models use the Rhapsody Parametric Constraint Evaluator (PCE) profile that ships with Rhapsody and the Maxima mathematical tool (available at http://maxima.sourceforge.net) for evaluation.
Remember, the Rhapsody tool is not required in order to create these models. Other tools, such as Cameo Systems Modeler (https://www.nomagic.com/products/cameo-systems-modeler) can be used instead. If you use Cameo Systems Modeler, you will want to use Cameo Simulation Toolkit for simulation and computation support.
You can access Cygwin C++ from https://www.cygwin.com and Maxima from http://maxima.sourceforge.net.