The purpose of SIDE is to allow an engineer to manipulate the system model created by him. It will allow the engineer to build various component 'blocks' of the system and then program this system as per his requirements. Thereafter, he can manipulate this system that he has created from the Input Output viewer or the Manager window.

SIDE consists of four basic modules:

1.            3D Viewer:

If the system can be represented graphically (An automobile, for instance), you can integrate its graphics within SIDE. These graphics will be seen in 3D here.

You can pan, zoom, fast zoom and view the image from any angle. This image is dynamic. As you will make changes to your system, this image will automatically update itself.

ScreenShot 1: 3D View

ScreenShot 2: 3D View-Mesh 

2.        Block Diagrams Viewer:

A system is always a set of components (or blocks) that work together towards a common purpose. Block diagrams are a representation of these system blocks and their relations.

A system can be (and mostly is) a set of sub-systems. Therefore, each of these sub-systems is also a system in itself. Block diagrams give you an easy access to various levels of this system and sub-systems by point and click interface.

ScreenShot 3: Top level block diagram ScreenShot 4: Last level block diagram

3.        Input/Output Viewer:

You can manipulate the model that you have created using this screen.  The relations between various blocks of the model are given here in a tree format. You can make changes at ANY level of the blocks and on clicking 'update', you would be able to see the impact of that change on the entire system. If the change implies a change in the graphics too, the 3D view of the model will also be updated instantaneously.

ScreenShot 5: Input/Output 

4.             Manager window:

 Whereas the first three modules are useful to the creator of the system, this module is meant for the user of the system. It allows him to make use of the system in the desired manner and experiment with it online.