Evaluating cost vs. output

[dmschell]

I am trying to run a simulation for a water treatment plant. I have several different processes set up that allow me to cut down on several seperate contaminants that i want to remove from the water. Each process removes a certain amount of each contaminant for the amount of size that the process is chosen as. The problem is that each process has a different cost associated with it dependent on the size set for the process. What I am trying to do is set up a system where labview will calculated how large i need to make each process to have the least amount of cost with the contaminants brought down to a specified level. Is there a way to do this without just guessing and checking placing in different sizes for each process?

Thanks

[gnunesjr]

From you post, I don't have a terribly clear idea of exactly what you are trying to optimize and how to set it up mathematically.  It sounds to me like you will wind up doing some kind of least squares minimization. 

So, to answer your question from the 30,000 foot level, the answer is yes.  Pretty much anything that can be described as a mathematical problem can be implemented in LabVIEW.  The question is whether you would want to.  There is nothing about this problem that specifically calls for LV (no data acquisition, instrument control, etc.).  If this were my problem, I'd start with something un-sexy like Excel, and if that didn't cut it, I'd step up to a text-based language (I'd use FORTRAN because it is the only programming language around that is older than I am).  On of the nice things in LabVIEW is all the mathematical library routines, but these are available for other languages too.  I'm partial to Numerical Recipes (google it).

-GN 

[dmschell]

Yes exactly I just don't know where to start with the numerical recipes. Basically ive got 10 different processes, each that eliminate a certain amount of contaminant dependent on their volume. Now each process has also a cost related to it that is also dependent on its volume. So I need to find a way to accurately choose the right volume for each process to reduce the contaminant levels to a certain amount and to also do this with the lowest cost.

Thanks