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DSS MATLAB 0.10.3-1: Minor fix
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@PMeira PMeira released this 21 Aug 17:44
· 39 commits to master since this release
0.10.3-1
fa727cf

The DSS MATLAB release adds a minor fix to how errors/exceptions are handled. This complements the previous main release:

This is the first release of the complete version of DSS MATLAB! Compared to the preview version, it complements the API with dozens of methods and increases the performance of both the API and the OpenDSS-based solver.

Please file an issue or contact me for feedback (pmeira at ieee.org).

What's this?

DSS MATLAB is a new member of the family of multi-platform language bindings based on the DSS C-API project, which exposes EPRI's OpenDSS with a custom API intended to replace and extend the functionality of the official COM object API. For other languages: check DSS Python, OpenDSSDirect.py and DSS Sharp. See more alternatives at https://dss-extensions.org/

As with DSS Python and DSS Sharp, this package tries to mimic the COM object structure to facilitate the transition and keep most of the existing code valid. The package is usually faster than the COM object. Most of the missing features are related to the plotting methods from OpenDSS, which are not available in DSS C-API. You can, of course, use MATLAB's plotting capabilities.

📦 Downloads

Download the file according to your platform, as each file contains platform-specific binaries:

On 2019-07-02, a simple example for the IEEE13 system was added in 13Bus.zip if you want to try DSS_MATLAB with a sample circuit. Continue reading for more.

Basic usage

  1. Download and extract the package appropriate for your system.
  2. Add the folder containing +DSS_MATLAB to your MATLAB path (e.g. path(path, 'c:\dss_matlab');).
  3. Instantiate DSS_MATLAB.IDSS. For example:
dss = DSS_MATLAB.IDSS;

If you code is based on DSSStartup.m from the examples included in the official distribution, in general you only need to replace the Obj = actxserver('OpenDSSEngine.DSS'); line. That is, update DSSStartup.m to:

%--------------------------------------------------------------------------
function [Start,Obj,Text] = DSSStartup
    % Function for starting up the DSS
    
    %instantiate the DSS Object
    Obj = DSS_MATLAB.IDSS;
    %
    %Start the DSS.   Only needs to be executed the first time w/in a
    %Matlab session
    Start = Obj.Start(0);

    % Define the text interface
    Text = Obj.Text;

If you want more code to play with, you can use the MATLAB examples from the official OpenDSS distribution, from a local installation (e.g. C:\OpenDSS\Examples\Matlab) or from the official SVN repository.

Sandia's GridPV toolbox has been confirmed to work with very minor changes. Note that the toolbox seems to be out-of-date for some features, so don't expect everything to work even with COM (e.g. Google Maps integration seems broken).

As a general advice (valid for COM and DSS_MATLAB), avoid using the get function without parameters on OpenDSS classes. Some properties like First and Next used for iteration of elements change the current active element and can lead to misleading data!

Known differences and more

We maintain a list of important differences between the official COM implementation and DSS C-API at:

https://github.com/dss-extensions/dss_capi/blob/master/docs/known_differences.md

Most of these apply indirectly to DSS_MATLAB.

The list of important changes through development is also useful.

Credits / Acknowlegement

This project is derived from EPRI's OpenDSS and the same style of license (BSD style) is used. As OpenDSS, the project also depends on KLUSolve and SuiteSparse, licensed under the LGPL.

See the DSS C-API project for more details and source files.

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