Auto Layout Tool

The Auto Layout Tool is used to automatically improve the layout of Simulink models.

Modeling operations often perturb a model's layout. Layout readjustment is usually needed, and represents a tedious activity if performed manually. Although achieving a proper layout of a Simulink model is deemed very important, there does not exist a comprehensive commercial automatic layout tool for Simulink models. The Auto Layout Tool resizes models' blocks based on number of inputs and outputs, and organizes the signal lines such that the number of crossings is minimized. Auto Layout Tool can leverage three different layout approaches: 1) "Graphviz", a third-party open source tool for drawing graphs; 2) Matlab’s built-in "GraphPlot" layout capability; 3) an in-house "DepthBased" method. Approaches 1) and 3) can be utilized on any version of Matlab/Simulink, while approach 2) only works on R2015b+.

• For installation instructions and instructions on how to use the tool, see Auto-Layout/doc/AutoLayout_UserGuide.pdf.

• This tool relies on our Simulink Utility. Please download it here: https://github.com/McSCert/Simulink-Utility.

For more about the capabilities of the tool and how it can be used in model-based development with Simulink, see the following two papers:

[1] Vera Pantelic, Steven Postma, Mark Lawford, Alexandre Korobkine, Bennett Mackenzie, Jeff Ong, Marc Bender, "A Toolset for Simulink: Improving Software Engineering Practices in Development with Simulink," In Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development (MODELSWARD 2015), SCITEPRESS, 2015, 50-61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5220/0005236100500061 (Best Paper Award)

[2] Vera Pantelic, Steven Postma, Mark Lawford, Monika Jaskolka, Bennett Mackenzie, Alexandre Korobkine, Marc Bender, Jeff Ong, Gordon Marks, Alan Wassyng, “Software engineering practices and Simulink: bridging the gap,” International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT), 2017, 95–117. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-017-0450-9