M A G E S T I C MAGic Parameter ESTimation for MS ExCel Logix Consulting, Inc. Order Toll Free 1-800-900-5541 magestic@lgx.com ================================================================== Demo release notes: Table of Contents Description Installation Removing Running the Demonstrations Using the Magestic wizard Limitations of the demo DESCRIPTION======================================================= Industrial Strength Data Fitting with a Familiar Face With the powerful combination of Magestic and Microsoft Excel 5.0, you’ll be able to fit any data in no time. No languages to learn, no new syntax or programming commands. Just an interface you already know, backed by a powerful optimization engine capable of fitting complicated system as easily as simple equations. If you can express it with an Excel formula (or an add-on DLL) then you can fit it with Magestic. Unlike math spreadsheets or symbolic languages, Magestic was engineered to handle the task of data fitting. Its global optimizer finds hidden solutions when the competition falls flat. And Magestic’s search engine is so fast you’ll find yourself wondering if it somehow cheated. Pure Wizardry Setting up new problems with Magestic is a breeze. That’s because it includes a fitting wizard that makes quick work of defining a new problem. Within seconds, the wizard will provide a new spreadsheet button that automates the call to Magestic. Later, you can make changes by merely selecting the button and re-running the wizard. No other system can claim this kind of ease of use. With the included tutorial, you’ll be up to speed in no time. Animation makes it come alive With the flick of a switch you can turn on echoing to view the progress of your fits in real time. Excel graphics let you watch the magic of the Magestic optimizer as it glides in to the minimum error. No barriers to the type or size of problems you can handle Because Magestic was built with a state of the art global search engine, you can handle problems of all sizes. For especially tough problems, you can provide Magestic with user-supplied gradients to speed up Magestic even further. Use the Excel SDK to create your model in C or C++ for even greater speed (requires the Excel SDK from Microsoft.) Recall your work and share Once you’ve used the Wizard to set up your problem and fine tune it, saving your fitting strategy is as easy as saving an Excel spreadsheet since everything needed is contained within your workbook. No need to make copious notes about how you fitted the data. And sharing results and strategies with others is as simple as sharing a spreadsheet. Nothing new to learn! Advanced Features - Unlimited number of parameters, independent and dependent variables. - Fast modified-Gauss-Newton + Monte Carlo DLL search engine. - Fitting Wizard for quick set-up with no programming. - Automatic global optimization. - Sequenced fits for automated parameter extractions without programming. - Parameter and Error masks for restricted sub-fitting. - Implicit equation fitting without solving. - Engine suitable for use with Lagrange multipliers for constr. optimization. Applications Virtually every discipline requires data fitting support for research, engineering, production and process control. In particular, Magestic is in use in the following fields: - Astronomy/Meteorology - Biology/Medicine - Chemistry/Chemical Engineering - Civil Engineering - Economics/Financial Modeling - Electrical Engineering - Geology - Mechanical Engineering - Physics - Marketing Research - Mathematical Research - Quality Control - Social and Behavioral Sciences Order Info Magestic is priced less than half of many commercial numerical FORTRAN libraries, yet it delivers a complete solution for your data fitting needs. Magestic is currently available for Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows NT. 32 Bit version requires Excel 5 for NT or Office 95. 32 bit Magestic for NT/Win 95 - $295 Magestic for Windows 3.11 - $295 Order Toll Free 1-800-900-5541 INSTALLATION======================================================= If you are running a previous version of Magestic, you must first remove it. See REMOVING below. You should first move the self-extracting file, magdem32.exe to a temporary directory. You must then run Microsoft Excel 5. In Excel, select File Open and navigate to the directory where you ran the self-extracting magdem32 program. Select 'install.xls' in the File Open dialog box. It will prompt you for the installation directory which you should leave as the default It will then prompt for a destination directory which defaults to c:\magestic. You may change this if you wish. Finally after it has completed, you will be asked to read the license agreement and accept it. REMOVING============================================================ To remove Magestic completely you must follow these steps: 1. Run Excel. 2. Select the Add-in manager by choosing Add-ins under the Tools menu. 3. Look for the Add-in 'Magestic Add-In' and de-select it. (i.e., make sure that no cross appears to the left of it) 4. Press the OK button 5. Quit Excel. (This must be done to complete the Add-in unloading process). 6. Delete the contents of the magestic directory 7. Delete the contents of the directory \excel\library\lgx. (assuming that your excel directory is located in \excel). RUNNING THE DEMONSTRATIONS=========================================== 1. Run Excel. 2. Open the file demo.xls that was placed in the c:\magestic directory during installation. 3. You will see that there are several tabs at the bottom illustrating various capabilities of Magestic. They are as follows: Simple - very simple loan calculation problem in which the Magestic engine is used to calculate the interest backwards from the loan payment. (Yes this is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut, but this is provided just to get your feet wet.) Diode - a slightly more realistic example of fitting the parameters of a semiconductor diode. One interesting note here is that the diode equation with an internal resistor is implicitly defined. This shows Magestic finding the parameters without solving the implicit equation. ChemKinetics - a real world illustration of the use of Magestic from a familiar chemical kinetics problem. This shows the use of Magestic to fit several curves at once to a very nonlinear function. ResStep 1-4 - This illustrates fitting the familiar resonance equation. Step 1 is for a single resonance, step 2-4 are for an uncoupled dual resonance. These steps illustrate the ability to supply analytic gradients, the use of sequenced fits, and the ability to use Excel to create production quality automated parameter fits. USING THE MAGESTIC WIZARD=============================================== The problems in the demo.xls file were all set up using the magestic wizard. The wizard makes it very easy to set up and maintain your fitting problems. To use the wizard on an existing fit button: 1. Select the button by clicking on it with the RIGHT (not left) mouse button. 2. Select the Fit Wizard button. The Fit Wizard button was put in the LGX toolbar during the set up. It is the only button in the bar and it has blue M in it with a yellow star over the right side of the M. 3. Explore the various dialogs of the wizard on the problems in the demo.xls to see how they were set up. 4. If you want, you can set up your own problems in the demo.xls sheet by selecting the Fit Wizard while no button is selected. This will create a new button with the information you supply to the wizard in the wizard dialogs. LIMITATIONS OF THE DEMO================================================== The demo is limited in several ways: - You can only use the spreadsheet named demo.xls. No other will work. - You can only have 100 data points in your problem. There is no limit in the commercial version. - You can fit to no more than 6 parameters simultaneously. There is no limit in the commercial version. - There is an upper limit to the number of evaluations the engine will make for a fit.