Professional & Commercial Versions
EES provides many basic features such as curve-fitting, linear regression, property plots, contour plots, uncertainty analyses, solutions to complex and differential equations and others. EES is available in both Commercial and Professional versions. All of the basic capabilities are provided in the Commercial version. The Professional version provides the following additional capabilities.
A Make Distributable command is provided to create a special purpose version of EES that will run up to 100 preselected problems. EES, the problems, and supporting files are placed in a single executable file that can be freely distributed to others. The end user does not need to own EES to run the calculations or create/change/view the plots and tables. The equations can be securely hidden from the user, if desired.
A Diagram window is provided in the Commercial version in which a picture can be imported and drawing objects, text, input variables, and calculated variables may be superimposed in this window. The capabilities of the Diagram Window are expanded in the Professional version to define 'hot areas' in the Diagram Window which, when clicked, bring up Child Diagram windows. The Child Diagram Window has all of the capabilities of a Diagram Window including the ability to launch other Child Diagram Windows. Numerical values can be input with slider controls as well as with edit boxes. Radio button and check box groups can be positioned on the Diagram or child Diagram windows to run specific EES code depending on which button is clicked. Link buttons may be placed on any of the Diagram windows to start external programs, run a macro, show a movie, start another EES file or other tasks.
The Professional version provides animation capabilities. Graphical objects and text placed in the Diagram window can have attributes such as location, size, angle, and color, that are specified and controlled with EES variables. Text items can be assigned to string variables that are specified dynamically in an EES program. As the values of these variables change, the display in the Diagram and child Diagram windows is automatically updated. In addition, the animation can be coupled with the plots. A red circle indicates the current value of a variable as the calculations proceed. Animations can only be created with the Professional version, but once created, they can be used in the Distributable and Commercial versions.
The Professional version allows a series of EES instructions (i.e., a macro) to be recorded with the Build Macro command in the File menu. EES can later be started from the Windows Run command or from a different program to replay all of the instructions in the Macro file. Used in this manner, EES can be directed to solve a set of equations in a specified text or EES file and to put the solution into another specified text file without ever appearing on the screen. Alternatively, the macro can be 'played' from within EES to automate a sequencial set of commands, eliminating the need to enter them from the menus. A large set of macro commands is supported that allow looping and logic. Macro commands can be used to interact with Microsoft EXCEL and Word.
Variable information can be read from or saved to a file. A variable information file has a .VAR filename extension, but it is a text file that can be opened in a word processor or spreadsheet. Variable information data can be saved to an existing .VAR file. In this case, the file is updated with the current information for the variables that are in use. Information in the file concerning variables that are not currently in use is not modified or deleted. If a program contains one or more modules, a dropdown list appears at the top center of the Variable Info dialog from which the module or main program can be selected. Variable information is read or saved for the selected module or main program. Variable information files make it very easy to prepare and use a file containing your common variables with appropriate guess values, limits, and units.
The Professional version allows a maximum of 12,000 variables and equations and the number of rows in the Parametric table is limited only by available memory.
The Professional version provides high accuracy properties for water substance at pressures up to 1000 MPa using the 1995 Formulation for the Thermodynamic Properties of Ordinary Water Substance for General and Scientific Use, issued by The International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS).
A Report Window is provided in the Professional version. The Report Window operates just like a word processor offering the usual choice of fonts, font sizes, text style, sub and superscripts, color, tabs, left and right indents, etc. Graphics can be pasted into the window. The graphics can be equations copied from the Formatted Equations window, a plot from the Plot window, or any graphics in the Diagram window. Graphics can also be pasted from other applications. In addition, the Report Window can include EES variables that are automatically updated as their values change.
The Professional version provides the Genetic and Nelder-Mead optimization algorithms in addition to the Variable Metric and Direct Search optimization algorithms. The Genetic optimization is slow but it is able to find a global optimum for a specified search area even when local optima exist.
Results of the optimization process can be logged to a text file in the Professional version.
The Equations window in the Professional version is provided with a splitter bar that allows two simultaneous views of different parts of the Equations window. This capability makes it easier to edit large files.
One or more selected equations in the Formatted Equations window can be automatically converted to LaTeX or MathType format in the Professional version. The MathType equations can be pasted directly into Microsoft Word. Double-clicking on an equation in Word starts MathType allowing the equation to be further edited.
The Professional version is able to write .EEZ files which are compressed .EES files that require much less space. All versions of EES can read .EEZ files.
Text in the Equations window can be protected in the Professional version. The text in the Equations Window can be highlighted in a choice of 8 colors, which makes it easier to locate information.
The Professional version provides a Library Manager that allows the user to easily control which library files are avaialable when EES is started.
The Professional version allows plot templates to be saved and applied. A plot template contains information that affects the visible display of a plot. The characteristics of an existing plot can be set as desired and then these characteristics can be be saved in a .EPT (EES plot template) file. The characteristics can be transferred to other plots by selecting the .EPT file and applying it.
Guess values and lower / upper bounds may be entered as equations in the Variable Information dialog for the Professional version.
The Professional version can solve larger uncertainty propagation problems. It can simultaneously determine the uncertainty propagation of up to 50 selected variables in terms of the uncertainties of up to 200 measured variables.
The toolbar on the Plot and Diagram windows in the Professional version provides buttons to construct polylines and polygons. The polylines can be smoothed to form cubic Bezier curves. The polygons can be partially transparent to provide colored shading, while allowing the underlying objects to be visible.
The Professional version can generate high quality polar plots.
The $CopyToLookup directive is available in the Professional version. This directive makes it very easy to move calculated scaler and array variables to a column in the Lookup table window. The data in the Lookup table can be written to an external file in a variety of formats.
The Professional version can generate Polar plots and 3-D point and surface plots.
The Professional version can supports dynamic data exchange (DDE) which can be used to interact with other programs such as MATLAB or EXCEL.