SIMOPT is a PC-based software for “Fast Time Simulation” for ship dynamics and was developed to support the efficiency of

• tuning processes for estimating the parameters for the math models in ship handling simulators and achieve the best fit between the real ships manoeuvring characteristics and the simulator ship model
• manual optimisation of manoeuvring parameter for specific manoeuvres e.g. for emergency turns as Williamson, Scharnow or Single Turn.

The math model for ship motion simulation has the same complexity and ships dynamic capabilities as the Advanced Nautical Simulator (ANS) Series [4], focusing on the most important dynamic effects but using fast solvers for saving computation time. The advantage and capabilities of this software are:

• The Math Model reveals same simulation results as ANS,
• It is remarkably faster than “ANS real time simulation” the ratio is up to 1/1000,
• The steering of simulator vessels is done by specific Manoeuvre-control settings / commands which can be tailored for standard procedures and individual manoeuvres.
• All results can be efficiently displayed in table or graphic format immediately in SIMOPT or can be exported to be compared with data from other sources (shiphandling simulator recordings or measurement data of manoeuvring trials with real ships using SIMDAT software tool.
• ships tuned and optimised in SIMOPT can be imported in the ANS