Installation - 2022.1 English

Vitis Model Composer User Guide (UG1483)

Document ID
UG1483
Release Date
2022-05-26
Version
2022.1 English

Downloading

Vitis™ Model Composer is part of Vivado® as well as the Vitis software platform, which can be downloaded from the Xilinx website. The AI Engine library is available only in the Vitis software platform, it is not part of the Vivado installation.

The Vitis Model Composer tool is selected by default in the Xilinx Unified Installer Window irrespective of whether you choose Vitis or Vivado as a product. The following figure shows the Vitis installer window and the Vitis Model Composer install option.

Figure 1. Vitis Installer

Launching Vitis Model Composer

You can launch the Vitis Model Composer tool directly from the desktop or from the command line. Double-click the Vitis Model Composer icon, or launch it from the Start menu in Windows, or use the following command from the command prompt.

model_composer
Tip: The command-line use of Vitis Model Composer requires that the command shell has been configured as follows. You must change directory to <install_dir>/Model_Composer/<version> and run the settings64-Model_Composer.bat (or .sh) file. Where <install_dir> is the installation folder and <version> is the specific version of the tool. MATLAB opens, and the HLS, HDL and AI Engine libraries and features are overloaded onto this environment.

Vitis Model Composer supports the latest releases of MATLAB. For more information on Supported MATLAB versions and operating systems, refer to Supported MATLAB Versions and Operating Systems. If you have multiple versions of MATLAB installed on your system, the first version found in your PATH will be used by the tool. You can edit the PATH to move the preferred version of MATLAB to precede other versions. You can also direct the tool to open a specific version of the tool using the -matlab option as follows:

model_composer -matlab C:\Progra~1\MATLAB\R2021a 
Tip: When you specify the path to the MATLAB version, do not specify the full path to the executable (bin/MATLAB). The string C:\Progra~1\ is a shortcut to C:\Program Files\ which eliminates spaces from the command path. The command-line use of the Vitis Model Composer tool requires that the command shell has been properly configured as previously discussed.
After launching the tool, you will see the following in the MATLAB command window. Use these links to access the documentation and product examples.
Figure 2. Documentation and Examples Links
Note: Model Composer simulation and code generation is not supported in Windows OS for designs that include blocks from the AI Engine library.