[Coin-discuss] SCIP: an open-source Constraint Mixed Integer Programming Solver (Tobias Achterberg)

Carl Wilburn csw_iii at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 21 13:01:06 EDT 2005


The availability of SCIP sounds similar to IPOPT.
IPOPT  is available free of charge for
academic/non-commercial use. It does, however, make
use of subroutines from the HSL which are again, free
for academic/non-commercial use but require a fee for
commercial use. 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but SCIP could be
made available thru COIN in a similar fashion.

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. SCIP: an open-source Constraint Mixed Integer
> Programming
>       Solver (Tobias Achterberg)
> 
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:04:47 +0200
> From: Tobias Achterberg <achterberg at zib.de>
> Subject: [Coin-discuss] SCIP: an open-source
> Constraint Mixed Integer
> 	Programming Solver
> To: coin-discuss <coin-discuss at list.coin-or.org>
> Message-ID: <43313E4F.8010806 at zib.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> the following announcement has only limited relation
> to the COIN project, but if you are looking for
>  open-source software for Mixed Integer Programming,
> you might be interested. However, if you think
> the COIN LP solver of John Forrest is a greate piece
> of software (which is true), you have another
> opportunity to bring it to good use by using SCIP
> linked to CLP.
> 
> =====
> 
> I'd like to announce the release of SCIP (Solving
> Constraint Integer Programs).
> SCIP is a framework for Constraint Integer
> Programming oriented towards the needs
> of Mathematical Programming experts who want to have
> total control of the
> solution process and access detailed information
> down to the guts of the solver.
> It integrates techniques from Mixed Integer
> Programming, Constraint Programming
> and SAT Solving.
> SCIP can also be used as pure MIP solver or as
> framework for branch-cut-and-price.
> 
> You can download the complete source code of the
> current version 0.80 from
> 
> http://scip.zib.de
> 
> SCIP is free of charge for academic institutions and
> non-commercial use. If you
> want to use it as a commercial institution, you have
> to obtain a commercial License
> from ZIB.
> (Because SCIP is not free of charge for commercial
> use, I could not incorporate it into
> the COIN project.)
> 
> SCIP has the following features:
> * framework for branching, cutting, pricing and
> propagation
> * multi LP solver support through an LP interface,
> currently supporting
>     - CPLEX
>     - Soplex
>     - CLP
> * highly flexible through many possible user
> extensions:
>     - constraint handlers to implement arbitrary
> constraints, currently supporting
>       linear constraints and some specializations
> like knapsack and set packing,
>       set covering, and set partitioning
>     - separators to apply cutting planes on the LP
> relaxation
>           * clique cuts
>           * c-MIR cuts
>           * Gomory mixed integer cuts
>           * implied bound cuts
>           * strong CG cuts
>     - pricers to dynamically generated problem
> variables
>     - domain propagators to reduce the variables'
> domains
>     - primal heuristics
>           * several diving heuristics, including
> guided dives
>           * two different rounding heuristics
>           * Local Branching
>           * RINS
>           * Octane
>     - node selectors to guide the search
>     - branching rules to split the problem into
> subproblems
>           * full strong branching
>           * inference branching
>           * least/most fractional branching
>           * pseudo cost branching
>           * reliability branching
>     - relaxators to incorporate relaxations
> additional to the LP relaxation (e.g. SDP)
>     - presolvers to simplify the solved problem
>     - file readers to understand different input
> file formats
>           * MPS format
>           * LP format
>           * ZIMPL models (needs ZIMPL library)
>     - event handlers to get informed each time a
> node was solved, a specific
>       variable changed its bounds, a new solution
> was found, ...
> * every existing unit is implemented as a user
> extension, leading to an
>   interface flexible enough to meet the needs of
> most additional user extensions
> * cut pool management
> * arbitrarily many children per node, branching on
> constraints
> * possibility to solve or not to solve the LP
> relaxation at each single node
> * conflict analysis to learn from infeasible
> subproblems
> 
> I would be glad, if you try to implement your own
> cutting plane separators,
> primal heuristics, branching rules, constraint
> handlers, and so on with the SCIP
> framework and send it to me such that I can
> incorporate the code into the official
> version of SCIP.
> Although there is only a doxygen documentation, you
> should be able (with my help)
> to implement your code (in C or C++) as plugin for
> SCIP.
> 
> 
> Regards,  Tobias Achterberg
> 
> 
> -- 
> Tobias Achterberg          Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum fuer
>                            Informationstechnik
> Berlin
> Tel: +49 (0)30 84185-301   Takustr. 7
> Email: achterberg at zib.de   D-14195 Berlin, Germany
> 
> 
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> End of Coin-discuss Digest, Vol 11, Issue 9
> *******************************************
> 


Carl Wilburn
(901)240-5684
csw_iii at yahoo.com



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