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Surface and Contour Plot¶

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QXL Monte Carlo New > Monte Carlo > Contribution Tools > Surface and Contour Plot

The dialog says what it does:

Draws a grid of charts, one for each pair of inputs you select, on its own worksheet for each output.

Select the inputs to plot and give each a low and a high. Every unordered pair of those inputs becomes one chart, and each chosen output gets its own worksheet per chart type.

This is a plot of the equations¶

No simulation is run. The tool evaluates the model across a grid of input values and draws the answer. There is no sampling method to choose and no simulation count, because there are no trials.

The distributions play no part in what is drawn. The low and the high you type are the range that is swept, and nothing overrules them: not the distribution on the input, not any truncation on it, and not any correlation between inputs. If you type 0 to 5, the sweep runs 0 to 5.

The distribution is used for exactly one thing: the number the dialog fills in as a starting default before you touch the box. Once you have typed a value, it is yours.

Which inputs can be plotted¶

Any marked input, including one whose distribution is Constant and one that cannot vary.

An unmarked cell that merely holds a number cannot be plotted. The engine folds those into the model rather than keeping them as inputs, so there is no input there to sweep.

The inputs you do not plot¶

Every input you did not select is held at a single value at every point of the grid. That value is the engine's nominal for it, which is the same value the Latitude Plot holds an unswept input at, so the two tools cannot disagree about it.

The three chart types¶

Interaction Plot, Surface Plot and Contour Plot. Tick any combination; at least one is required. Each chosen type gets its own worksheet per output, so ticking two types with three outputs makes six worksheets.

Options, for every control and the limits.
Latitude Plot, which also works pair by pair but answers a different question.