Installation

After installing, you can open the Behavior Execution Engine Installation Directory directly from the Windows Start menu or Taskbar search box.

Currently, the runtime will look in the delegates and modelDependencies directories in the install location for the default locations of dependencies for individual simulation runs. While there are ways to have SysML models point to other locations for deployment, be sure that users will have read/write access to these directories in the BEE install location. Otherwise, this may limit the ability for users to deploy reusable models that span across different specific simulations.

Install the Behavior Execution Engine files

  1. In the Behavior Execution Engine installation media, open the Behavior Execution Engine folder and run setup.exe.
  2. On the Welcome page, click Next >.
  3. On the License Agreement page, select whether or not you accept the license agreement and click Next >.
  4. On the Install Type page, select whether to install Behavior Execution Engine for all users or just yourself and click Next >.

    Installing Behavior Execution Engine for all users requires administrator credentials. Furthermore, Java is also required to install the Behavior Execution Engine. We recommend Java 8 or 11.

    Users of Behavior Execution Engine will likely need to be able to update the content of several directories included in the installation. So when installing for all users, you should choose a location that will not require administrator credentials to edit. In particular, consider avoiding the default Windows Program Files location and instead prefer installing to a new, user-agnostic working directory on the system. For example: C:\Workspace\BehaviorExecutionEngine

  5. On the Destination Folder page, specify where to install the Behavior Execution Engine files and click Next >.
  6. If you have STK installed, you can optionally select to install the STK UI Plugin allowing you to use the SysML Client Plugin from within STK.
  7. On the Ready to Install page, click Install.
  8. On the Completed page, select whether to open this help documentation, the client licensing settings, or the installer log and click Finish.

Install of the UI plugin into STK

This feature requires a valid installation of Systems Tool Kit (STK).

If you have already installed STK, the setup.exe will include a check box indicating whether you want to install the UI Plugin for Behavior Execution Engine into your STK environment.

SysML Client automatic deployment

  1. Launch the SysML Client Application and press continue to proceed to the home page.
  2. Expand the Actions menu and select the Settings to bring up the settings window.
  3. Press the Deploy STK UI Plugin button under the STK Integration section.
  4. Go through the prompts to install the UI Plugin. If STK is installed, this should detect your user area and install the plugin config file there.
  5. (Optional) Open STK and ensure that the "BEE SysML Client Plugin" shows up in your toolbar. This provides a way to open the SysML Client from inside STK.

Manual UI Plugin installation

If you would need to configure the plugin without the client, here are the steps for manually installing it.

  1. Locate the plugin configuration template in the installation directory after running setup.exe. You can find it in: %BEE-Install%/application/STK_Plugin_Config/SysML_Client_STK_Plugin.xml
  2. Locate the plugin configuration directory for your STK installation. This is either in:
    • %UserProfile%/Documents/STK 12/Config/plugins
    • %ProgramData%/AGI/STK 12/plugins
  3. Copy the template file into the appropriate plugins directory in order to 'register' the plugin for STK when STK loads.
  4. Open the template XML file and edit the AGIRegistry / CategoryRegistry / Category / NetUiPlugin / CodeBase tag to point to the absolute path of the %BEE_Install%/application/SysML_Client directory.
  5. (Optional) Open STK and ensure that the "BEE SysML Client Plugin" shows up in your toolbar. This provides a way to open the SysML Client from inside STK.

Now, when you open STK, you should see a new menu item under "Utilities" for the SysML_Client that connects to the Behavior Execution Engine. You can also right click on the menu bars to enable the plugin icon for the "SysML Client STK Plugin". This provides a button that will open the user interface for the client inside STK.

If you don't see the plugin elements, check to make sure the paths are correct and check the STK message viewer for any errors on load.

Configure the client licensing settings

If you do not have access to a network license server with the Ansys License Manager already running with a Behavior Execution Engine license, then install the Ansys License Manager on your local machine before continuing.

  1. Open the Behavior Execution Engine Client Licensing Settings from the Windows Start menu or Taskbar search box.

    If you installed Behavior Execution Engine for all users, you must open the settings as an administrator (right-click it and select Run as administrator, entering your administrator credentials when prompted).

  2. If you do not see the Port and Server text boxes, then select FlexNet Publisher > License servers in the left side column.
  3. Make sure that Enabled is toggled on, and if necessary, click the + button to create a new row.
  4. In the Port text box, enter the port for the Ansys License Manger (1055 by default).
  5. In the Server 1 text box, enter the hostname of the machine running the Ansys License Manager (localhost should work if you installed the Ansys License Manager on your local machine).
  6. Click Test to verify the connection to the server.
  7. Click Save and then close the settings utility.

(Recommended) Configure an "Element Locator" Macro in your No Magic SysML modeling tool

If you are using MagicDraw, Cameo, or another No Magic SysML modeling tool, you will need to be able to find references to the IDs of model elements that show up in simulation log files, SysML behavior traces, and other data output. Creating a macro is a way to make finding elements by IDs easier. If you have other ways of finding elements using the "XMI ID" shown in the element specification, that will work just as well.

  1. Locate the following file from your install directory in the steps above: samples/MagicDrawMacros/ElementLocatorMacro.js
  2. Open your MagicDraw or Cameo tool.
  3. Open the Tools menu and open Macros and then Organize Macros.
  4. Click Add to add a new macro.
  5. Name the Macro "Element Locator". You can use another name, but the rest of this documentation uses that name to refer to the feature.
  6. Select the JavaScript Rhino language.
  7. Import the file from the "ElementLocatorMacro.js" file in your install. You can also look at the code and modify it as needed if you are familiar with the macro system.
  8. Leave the arguments empty. There are no "arguments" and this will instead present a convenient popup window to ask for the ID.
  9. (Optional) Configure a "shortcut" key for this feature, such as <Ctrl>+i for "ID" or <Ctrl>+l for "locate"
  10. Press OK to close the Macro Information dialog
  11. Press Close the Organize Macros dialog.

Optional: You may also want to configure a button for this macro.

  1. In the blank space to the right of the main toolbar of your No Magic tool, right click and select customize to open the customization dialog for toolbar buttons.
  2. Select Main Toolbars and click Add and then New Toolbar.
  3. You can name this toolbar whatever you want, such as "Macros".
  4. Click on the name of your new toolbar and press Add and then Button to add a new button to your custom toolbar.
  5. A new dialog will open up to ask you what the button should do. Navigate to Main Toolbar > Main Menu > Tools > Macros > Macro and then select the name of your macro.
  6. Now, press OK to exit the dialogs, and you should see a new toolbar with the name of your macro on a button.

After configuring the macro, you may want to test that it is working before completing the installation and setup.

  1. Open any SysML project.
  2. Open the specification for any element in the containment tree.
  3. Locate the "Element ID" for the element. Note: You may need to switch the Properties option from the "Standard" view to "All" in order to see the Element ID.
  4. Copy the "Element ID" to the clipboard.
  5. In the containment tree browser, close any packages or otherwise navigate away from the element that you chose.
  6. Run your macro using either the Tools menu or the macro toolbar button from the steps above.
  7. Executing the macro should cause a dialog to pop up asking for the Element ID. Paste the Element ID into the dialog.
  8. After pressing OK, the dialog should close after selecting (highlighting) the respective element in the containment tree browser.

(Recommended) Tool Setup for resolving SysML model dependencies

If you are using MagicDraw, Cameo, or another No Magic SysML modeling tool, you may want to reference the model dependencies provided with this install. There are two options for setting up the tools so that users do not need to find the dependency every time they are opening a SysML project.

  1. Recommended: In your No Magic SysML tool, there should be a way to denote additional directories from which to resolve project dependencies. In Cameo, this is under Options > Environment > General > Save/Load where there is a property for "Global Path to Used Projects". By updating this property to point to the modelDependencies folder in the BEE installation directory, this should allow Cameo to resolve the dependencies provided with BEE.
  2. You can also copy the files from the modelDependencies folder in the BEE installation directory to the modelLibraries folder of your No Magic tool's installation directory. Those tools will look in that directory by default.

Verify that, when you open the modeling tool with a project that uses these models (such as the sample mdzips), you see that each model dependency is resolved by checking the Options > Project Usages menu.

Never reference the dependencies from more than one location. If a project is having trouble resolving dependencies, choosing an absolute path on your local system may make the project non-portable to other systems when sharing it. Saving to different locations on different systems with more than one copy of the same dependency on a given system may result in loading more than one instance of the same dependency, resulting in "duplicate" elements with the same IDs.

(Optional) Install templates to your No Magic SysML modeling tool

If you are using MagicDraw, Cameo, or another No Magic SysML modeling tool, you may want to install the template project provided with this install.

  1. From the BEE install location, copy the samples/Behavior Execution Engine Simulation directory to the templates directory in your No Magic tool's install directory.
  2. Verify that, when you open the modeling tool and create a new project, you now see the template project show up under the "simulation" category.

(Optional) Set up your developer environment

If you plan to use Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, or VS Code for developing delegates, see the Developer Environment topic for recommendations on how to configure them to build your delegates using Gradle.

Troubleshooting

Please refer to the Troubleshooting page if you have any issues with installing Behavior Execution Engine.