What is in the AIMMS documentation

The User’s Guide

The AIMMS User’s Guide provides a global overview of how to use the AIMMS system itself. It is aimed at application builders, and explores AIMMS’ capabilities to help you create a model-based application in an easy and maintainable manner. The guide describes the various graphical tools that the AIMMS system offers for this task. It is divided into five parts.

  • Part I-Introduction to AIMMS-what is AIMMS and how to use it.

  • Part II-Creating and Managing a Model-how to create a new model in AIMMS or manage an existing model.

  • Part III-Creating an End-User Interface-how to create an intuitive and interactive end-user interface around a working model formulation.

  • Part IV-Data Management-how to work with cases and datasets.

  • Part V-Miscellaneous-various other aspects of AIMMS which may be relevant when creating a model-based end-user application.

The Language Reference

The AIMMS Language Reference provides a complete description of the AIMMS modeling language, its underlying data structures and advanced language constructs. It is aimed at model builders only, and provides the ultimate reference to the model constructs that you can use to get the most out of your model formulations. The guide is divided into seven parts.

  • Part I-Preliminaries-provides an introduction to, and overview of, the basic language concepts.

  • Part II-Non-Procedural Language Components-describes AIMMS’ basic data types, expressions, and evaluation structures.

  • Part III-Procedural Language Components-describes AIMMS’ capabilities to implement customized algorithms using various execution and flow control statements, as well as internal and external procedures and functions.

  • Part IV-Sparse Execution-describes the fine details of the sparse execution engine underlying the AIMMS system.

  • Part V-Optimization Modeling Components-describes the concepts of variables, constraints and mathematical programs required to specify an optimization model.

  • Part VI-Data Communication Components-how to import and export data from various data sources, and create customized reports.

  • Part VII-Advanced Language Components-describes various advanced language features, such as the use of units, modeling of time and communicating with the end-user.

Optimization Modeling

The manual on optimization modeling provides not only an introduction to modeling but also a suite of worked examples. It is aimed at users who are new to modeling and those who have limited modeling experience. Both basic concepts and more advanced modeling techniques are discussed. The manual is divided into five parts:

  • Part I-Introduction to Optimization Modeling-covers what models are, where they come from, and how they are used.

  • Part II-General Optimization Modeling Tricks-includes mathematical concepts and general modeling techniques.

  • Part III-Basic Optimization Modeling Applications-builds on an understanding of general modeling principles and provides introductory application-specific examples of models and the modeling process.

  • Part IV-Intermediate Optimization Modeling Applications-is similar to part III, but with examples that require more effort and analysis to construct the corresponding models.

  • Part V-Advanced Optimization Modeling Applications-provides applications where mathematical concepts are required for the formulation and solution of the underlying models.

Documentation of deployment features

In addition to the three major AIMMS manuals, there are several separate documents describing various deployment features of the AIMMS software. They are:

Help files

The AIMMS documentation is complemented with a number of help files that discuss the finer details of particular aspects of the AIMMS system. Help files are available to describe:

  • the execution and solver options which you can set to globally influence the behavior of the AIMMS’ execution engine,

  • the finer details of working with the graphical modeling tools, and

  • a complete description of the properties of end-user screens and the graphical data objects which you can use to influence the behavior and appearance of an end-user interface built around your model.

The AIMMS help files are available as Windows help files, accessible in AIMMS IDE from the menu Help -> Help on Windows or by pressing F1.

AIMMS tutorials

Two tutorials on AIMMS in PDF format provide you with some initial working knowledge of the system and its language. One tutorial is intended for beginning users, while the other is aimed at professional users of AIMMS.

AIMMS model library

AIMMS comes with an extensive model library, which contains a variety of examples to illustrate simple and advanced applications containing particular aspects of both the language and the graphical user interface. You can find the AIMMS model library on Github

You can also find the AIMMS model library in the Examples directory in the AIMMS installation directory. The Examples directory also contains an AIMMS project providing an index to all examples, which you can use to search for examples that illustrate specific aspects of AIMMS.