The Wolfram Group today announced its new SystemModeler product, a high-fidelity modeling environment that creates computable, large-scale systems using symbols and a drag-and-drop interface. The software integrates the Wolfram technology platform to enable analysis and reporting, integrating the modeling and engineering phases of design.

The announcement of SystemModeler came on the Wolfram Blog, in a post by Stephen Wolfram himself. From the blog post:

In SystemModeler, a system is built from a hierarchy of connected components—often assembled interactively using SystemModeler‘s drag-and-drop interface. Internally, what SystemModeler does is to derive from its symbolic system description a large collection of differential-algebraic and other equations and event specifications—which it then solves using powerful built-in hybrid symbolic-numeric methods. The result of this is a fully computable representation of the system—that mirrors what an actual physical version of the system would do, but allows instant visualization, simulation, analysis, or whatever.

Wolfram purposely made SystemModeler very general in terms of what is possible with the software. Users can model mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, biological, and other types of systems. SystemModeler was built such that every piece of a system will have both a symbolic and mathematical representation.

“If you think models are just for modeling, you’re missing the future of design optimization,” said Jan Brugård CEO of MathCore and SystemModeler Manager. “Instead, build the high-fidelity model once for modeling, simulation, and analysis. Computation isn’t an optional extra, it’s central to the infrastructure of modern model optimization.”

The standard edition of SystemModeler for students costs only $75, and is $35 for a Semester Edition. An individual license for teachers will cost around $500, and individual government use costs $2,800. The most expensive individual license is for business customers, who will need to cough up almost $3,500 for the software. For enterprise and group licensing, potential buyers will have to request a quote from Wolfram.