Modular models

The term “modular modelling” usually refers to the use of interchangeable components (or modules) in a model. The component may be a single equation, but typically it is a large component: for example, a plant submodel or a soil water submodel. There have been calls for the development of modular modelling approaches for some two decades, and some working systems, motivated by the advantages that this would confer on the modelling process in terms of model construction, testing and reuseability of components. In addition, a major motive for the adoption of object-oriented software engineering approaches has been its support for modularity in modelling.

The purest form is “plug-and-play” modularity, in which the interfacing between a module and the main model is pre-defined (like the pins on an integrated circuit chip). All the modeller needs to do is to load the module, and it is automatically part of the model. Simile enables you to do this, as a two-step operation. First, you load the module (a Simile model, loaded into a submodel window). Then you select an Interface Specification File which defines the links between the submodel and the rest of the model. This approach has considerable merits: it means that the same Simile model can be inserted as a module in a range of other models, with different interfacing for each one.

At the other extreme, Simile supports “free-form” modularity, in which it is entirely up to the modeller to decide how the inserted submodel links to the rest of the model. This means that the modeller has access to a much greater range of models to use as submodels — ones that were developed with no intention that they be used as a submodel in someone else’s model. This removes the need for careful defining of interfaces which plagues current modular (and indeed object-oriented) systems.