SimWrapper version 4.0

June 16, 2025

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

Announcing the release of SimWrapper 4.0, available now on GitHub and at https://simwrapper.app

There are lots of new things to share:

New front page and file browser

simwrapper front page

The front page and file browser are much cleaner and more refined with a less garish color scheme. In addition to looking nicer, it now should be easier to find your projects, favorites, and documentation.

Experimental MATSim event file viewer

Example event viewer with vehicle animation

A first stab at a viewer for MATSim event files is now enabled. Currently this just shows vehicle trajectories found in the file, but a more feature-rich version is in the works.

Inside simwrapper.app you can browse to any folder containing an output_events.xml.gz file, and click on the "EVENTS-output.xml.gz" in the list of maps. The file should start streaming almost immediately.

Matrix viewer for OMX/HDF5 files

Matrix viewer

The OMX/HDF5 matrix viewer allows you to explore your matrix data in tabular form -- or in combination with a zonal shapefile, you can visually inspect it one row or column at a time. (If you have ideas on how to visual the entire matrix on a map instead of just one slice, let me know!)

The matrix viewer has been out for a while. This version sports a much-improved user interface and massively improved performance for non-local files. Other additions include a built-in compare/diff mode, table and zone filter/search capability, and editable legend breakpoints.

Updated python package for local installations

The old pip install simwrapper python app was back-burnered for a while, but it is back!

The new version is ideal for those of you who want to run SimWrapper inside your firewall instead of using the simwrapper.app website.

The new version learned a new command, simwrapper flask which starts a Python "flask" app and serves up files in the current folder from a local HTTP server. This is super useful if you have cloud-storage files mounted to a folder on a server, for example!

Contact me or ask on the discussion board for more details on how to use the new Python app.

...and more!

There are many, many bugfixes and small feature improvements in this release. All of us who have been working on this code or supporting the effort thank you for your interest in SimWrapper! Speaking of which...

simwrapper usage graph

There is a lot of interest in SimWrapper this year and the line keeps going up!

Let's see where 4.x takes us!

simwrapper.app - the new home for SimWrapper

March 3, 2025

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

SimWrapper has a new home: https://simwrapper.app

The project has outgrown the old github.io URLs and needed a place of its own. Nothing else has changed about the project or website: it is still a 100% open source, static website developed in the open on GitHub. All of the source code remains on GitHub too. Only the URLs for actually using the tool and its documentation have changed.

Main site: simwrapper.app

Documentation (you are here): docs.simwrapper.app

Let us know if you find broken links or any strangeness related to the move!

SimWrapper version 3.6

February 10, 2025

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

SimWrapper release 3.6 is online now. This entry also includes new features from 3.5 which didn't get its own post.

Some bugfixes and a few new features:

Maps:

  • Layered maps: Area/network maps can now have shapefile layers above or below the main dataset.
  • New transparency slider for Shapefile/Map FillColor definition. This helps with area maps where the solid colors make it hard to "see" the streets and geography beneath.
  • Geopackage file format now supported in map views and layer maps

Dashboards

Dashboard subtabs can now import other dashboards files. Be careful with relative paths, but if you specify things correctly you can now have dashboards that reference other dashboards!

Example dashboard here where the various seeds are referencing dashboards in other folders. Example YAML file is here

MATSim Logistics Viewer

Introducing a new MATSim logistics viewer, similar to carrier viewer but allowing multi-depot logistics! See logistics docs here

Transit viewer

You can now specify custom route colors based on GTFS/route parameters, with "colors" attribute. See transit docs here

Tables

Table alignment now allows left/center/right array to be passed in yaml

Lots of new stuff to bite into! See the Change Log for the full list of updates.

SimWrapper version 3.3

July 11, 2024

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

SimWrapper minor release 3.3 is out now.

Some bugfixes and a few new features:

Background layers in Shapefile/GeoJSON viewer. The main Shapefile/Network/GeoJSON map view learned how to draw background polygon layers behind your main dataset. This is useful for delineating geographies such as district boundaries and service areas that are relevant to your dataset.

Background Layers behind a network plot

You can find this feature in the configurator button in the top-right of the map view; open the Layers section and add your GeoJSON data directly. Note that, due to browser security rules, the file might not immediately load if it is not stored in the same folder as your model run. You can edit the path to include a relative path such as ../../boundaries/my_service_area.geojson and then it will load.

The YAML for the boundary layers is backward-compatible with your existing map YAML configs. There is a new backgroundLayers section, which looks like below:

title: "My Map with Layers"
description: "Example"
zoom: 11.3
center: -122.4, 37.72
shapes:
    file: freeflow.geojson
    join: AB
datasets: {}
display: {}
# HERE IS THE NEW STUFF --
backgroundLayers:
    Supervisor Districts:
        shapes: ../../shapefiles/SupervisorDistricts.shp
        fill: "Rainbow" # each shape will have a different color
        opacity: 0.3
        borderColor: "#fff"  # CSS color hex codes
        borderWidth: 3
        label: NAME # optional data column with a label for the polygon
        visible: true  # default to showing this layer
    Layer2:
        shapes: ../sf-taz.geojson
        fill: "#fff" #white
        opacity: 0.5
        borderColor: "#fff"
        borderWidth: 1
        visible: false # default to hide this layer; user can click to add it

See the Change Log for the full list of updates.

SimWrapper version 3.1

May 16, 2024

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

SimWrapper 3 has been out since spring 2024 and includes some new goodies:

Dashboard reorganization. Dashboard sections are now displayed along the right instead of as tabs across the top of the view. In addition, each dashboard section can have multiple tabs! This two-level structure allows more detail on individual sections while helping you to organize things.

Improved file system navigation. Breadcrumbs and navigation work better now; pin favorite folders to the left bar; and the new "Split" side-panel allows you to split the window view into multiple areas by dragging a file folder from the folder view into the main window.

HDF5 Matrix Viewer allows browsing of HDF5-format matrix data as tables, as a heat map, or mapped onto a zonal boundary file. This is very handy for zonal data display and review.

Grid Map visualization for X/Y point data that's on a grid =)

Project pages now can have a consistent top-navigation bar defined in simwrapper-config.yaml

Avro data file support. The Apache Avro file format is a widely-used data format that now has experimental support in SimWrapper for MATSim networks and XY data. Depending on user feedback, this may get wider support in MATSim itself and in SimWrapper.

See the Change Log for the full list of updates.

SimWrapper version 2.5

August 22, 2023

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

SimWrapper version 2.3

May 26, 2023

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

Version 2.3 is now live on simwrapper.github.io and also on vsp.berlin/simwrapper!

Plotly charts: The original bar/area/line charts are simplified versions of the well-known Plotly charting library. They are deliberately simplified so that you can create simple plots quickly. They are still available. But if you want more power, SimWrapper now exposes all Plotly chart types, even non-cartesian plots, 3-D, and more: explore the new Plotly plugin.

Tiles plugin: Do you need to highlight just one value in a top-level dashboard? Check out the new type: tile dashboard plugin here: Tiles

Lots of bugfixes: Version 2.3 includes many, many bugfixes in the shapefile viewer and MATSim roadway and transit network readers. Thanks for the bug reports!

See the Change Log for the full list of updates.

SimWrapper version 2.2

April 21, 2023

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

SimWrapper version 2.1

January 4, 2023

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

Version 2.1 is on vsp.berlin/simwrapper and also on simwrapper.github.io!

This is mostly a bugfix update, with some new features in the Flowmap and some other visualizations.

Simpler dashboard configuration: Dashboard configuration files have been "flattened" a bit, meaning that there isn't so much indentation required anymore because the old props section has been merged with the standard layout fields for all cards. You can see some examples on the Dashboard docs page

Review the Change Log for the full list of updates.

SimWrapper version 2.0

October 21, 2022

Billy Charlton

Billy Charlton

Version 2.0 is out now

Version 2 is on vsp.berlin/simwrapper and also on simwrapper.github.io!

This is a big update with lots of new features. Some are fully baked and others are still in development, as we collect data from users on how best to deploy them.

Dashboard example Example SimWrapper 2.0 dashboard with link data, x/y/time point data, new navigation, and some charts

New features

Big improvements to Shapefile and GeoJSON viewer: San Francisco County Transportation Authority sponsored development on the shapefile/areamap/GeoJSON viewer. Much better symbology, filters, difference plots, and normalized data capabilities are all included now. Both polygon-based maps and link-based (network) line shapefiles are now supported, which enables area maps and network plots to be displayed easily.

New left-navigation panel: The unhideable, not-very-useful left nav bar has been replaced with a multipurpose panel that lets you navigate your filesystem independently of the views that are displayed in the main panel. And you can hide it!

Embeddable maps: The new shapefile viewer (and soon all maps) can be embedded in other websites and project portals by appending ?embed to the end of the URL. This removes all the Simwrapper "chrome" and widgets, leaving a clean map that can be included in your external project site.

Drag and drop views: You can double-click or drag/drop visualization panels from the left-nav onto the main area, creating split-pane views on the fly

Simpler dashboard YAML syntax: YAML requires careful indentation, and SimWrapper dashboard YAML files had many many levels of indentation. We've eliminated the pesky props: subsection from dashboards, and users can now place all of their viz configuration at the same level. Much easier to read, and less buggy!

X/Y/T point data viz: A new disaggregate point-data viewer displays lat/long point data with a time-slider component. Useful for point-based emissions, noise, and other data (experimental)

MATSim event viewer: Initial version of a MATSim event animation viewer. We finally cracked the difficult problem of streaming larger-than-memory XML files inside a browser tab. Event files load, but are slow to do so. We're gathering user feedback at VSP Berlin on how to fully integrate this into SimWrapper (experimental)

And many many bugfixes. See the Change Log for the full list.

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