Beginner Tutorial on Plugins Development

Welcome to the beginner tutorial on SAInt plugins. In this tutorial, we will dive into the capabilities of SAInt API and explore advanced programming techniques with Python to develop plugins for different types of workflows and automation. We will focus on showcasing the basic components and structure of a plugin, along with demonstrating how to setup a working developing environment.

The example of the plugin shows how to create a specialized statistical chart for exploring probability distribution of a set of values of a property out of a simulation or optimization problem. You can find more details on "violin plots" here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_plot). By the end of this tutorial, you will have a strong understanding of how to create plugins in SAInt and Python to address specific tasks. And do not forget to check the category "Plugins" on the community Forum from where you can download plugins provided by encoord or other SAInt users. So let’s get started!

  • Integrated development environments (IDEs) such as PyCharm, Sypder, or Visual Studio Code (VSCode) can be used to follow this tutorial. Once you have installed Python, please open your preferred Python IDE and set your Python interpreter. This will allow you to run Python code within your IDE.

  • Before starting this tutorial, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the basic operations and workflow within SAInt by at least reviewing the overview and layers sections of the reference documentation. This is to ensure that you have a good learning experience through this tutorial series and you are on your way to becoming a SAInt API expert.

Time to complete:

As a test dataset, the tutorial uses the network ENET39 and the scenario "ACPF_PEAK_DEMAND_WEEK.esce" available from the category "Model Ready Datasets" on the community Forum.