CO-LaN UNIT Special Interest Group has performed an extensive review of the CAPE-OPEN Unit Operation interface specification in order to build upon the experience gathered through the development of many CAPE-OPEN Unit Operations. The purpose has not been to change the interface specification but to clarify it as much as possible. The modified document is now being pushed through CO-LaN internal approval process.
During this review it became evident that providing examples of a proper implementation of the interface specification would be beneficial to all developers. Developers of CAPE-OPEN Unit Operations are already helped by Wizards available for various programming languages. Still, feedback gathered in the past has shown that a number of developers were reluctant to use a wizard while they would be ready to start their own development from a complete existing code written by somebody else.
Consequently CO-LaN contracted AmsterCHEM to develop two source code examples, one in Visual Basic 6 and the other one in C++. The Unit Operation is a simple mixer-splitter. CAPE-OPEN Thermodynamic 1.0 or 1.1 may be consumed by the examples, making the examples very versatile in use. While Visual Basic 6 is being phased out by Microsoft, a large number of copies of Visual Studio 6.0 are apparently still around. This justified making on example in VB6. The C++ example provides what comes best in terms of performance. Both examples are distributed through a common installer that installs binaries as well as source code. The code itself is fully documented.
The examples were delivered to CO-LaN in August and provided for early testing to Reaction Design. Based on the feedback received, CO-LaN is now distributing the software to everybody interested. Your feedback will be appreciated, if possible through the CAPE-OPEN forum.