This software is described in
T Heldt, R Mukkamala, GB Moody, and RG Mark. CVSim: An Open-Source Cardiovascular Simulator for Teaching and Research. Open Pacing, Electrophysiol & Ther J 3:45-54 (2010).
Please cite this publication when referencing this software, and also include the standard citation for PhysioNet:
Goldberger AL, Amaral LAN, Glass L, Hausdorff JM, Ivanov PCh, Mark RG, Mietus JE, Moody GB, Peng C-K, Stanley HE. PhysioBank, PhysioToolkit, and PhysioNet: Components of a New Research Resource for Complex Physiologic Signals. Circulation 101(23):e215-e220 [Circulation Electronic Pages; http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/101/23/e215.full]; 2000 (June 13).
If you teach using CVSim, please tell us about your course.
The CVSim software was developed between 1983 and 2007, and four versions of it are available from PhysioNet:
CVSim is a lumped-parameter model of the human cardiovascular system that has been developed and used for research and for teaching quantitative physiology courses at MIT and Harvard Medical School since 1984. The versions presented here have a graphical user interface implemented in Java, with computational components in C. The portable C code has been compiled for popular platforms, and users of Linux (x86), Mac OS X (PPC and x86), and MS Windows (x86) should be able to use the links below to run CVsim.
CVSim requires the 32-bit Sun/Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE 6 or 7 but not later), running on a 32- or 64-bit version of Linux, Mac OS X, or MS-Windows. CVSim will not run on 64-bit versions of the JRE, on any version of OpenJDK (IcedTea), or on Solaris.
CVSim has been tested successfully using 32-bit JRE 7 on 64-bit Windows 7 and 64-bit Windows 10;
32-bit JRE 6 on 32-bit Windows XP, 32- and 64-bit Windows 7, Mac OS X (PPC, x86, and x86_64, 32-bit versions 10.4 and 10.5, and 64-bit 10.6), and many versions of 32- and 64-bit Linux including Fedora (4 through 19), Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 4, and Ubuntu 8.04, 10.04, and 12.04.
Prerequisites for the Educational Version of CVSim (CVSim-6)
In order to run the educational version of CVSim, Java Web Start must be installed on your computer. Since it is included in all recent versions of the Java Runtime Engine (JRE), this may have been done already. If not:
Some 64-bit browsers (such as 64-bit versions of IE 8) are incompatible with 32-bit versions of Java. If this is the case for your browser, install and use a 32-bit browser in order to install the 32-bit JRE and launch CVSim. You do not need to change your OS or remove your 64-bit browser in order to do so.
You need to do this at most once on any computer on which you will use CVSim. Restart your browser after installing or updating Java.
Important! If both 32- and 64-bit JREs are installed, the 32-bit JRE must have a newer version number. If both JREs have the same version number, or if the 64-bit JRE has a newer one, it will not be possible to launch the 32-bit JRE successfully, and in this case you must uninstall the 64-bit JRE. For example, the presence of 64-bit JRE 7 will prevent 32-bit JRE 7 from launching, but 64-bit JRE 6 will not interfere with 32-bit JRE 7. The instructions for uninstalling a Java package on Windows are at http://www.java.com/en/download/help/uninstall_java.xml.
Once Java Web Start has been installed on your computer, one of the two links below can be used to start CVSim.
PhysioNet mirror users: Try the alternate link first. If it doesn't work, the first link can be used to launch CVSim from the master PhysioNet server. When you attempt to launch CVSim, alerts about the risks of doing so will appear (see details for JRE 6 and JRE 7).
IcedTea Web Start: On Linux (and perhaps on other platforms),
your browser may suggest launching CVSim using the IcedTea Web Start
application. Try it if you wish, and please let us know if you are
successful; as of this writing, we have not had success using IcedTea
Web Start and we have not heard from anyone else who has. As noted in
the previous section, the Sun (now Oracle) JRE 6 or 7, its Java plugin, and
its Web Start application are known to work and are recommended. The
Sun/Oracle Java Web Start application, javaws, is installed
in /usr/java/jre1.n.n_nn/bin/javaws on Fedora Linux;
this may vary on other platforms.
Research version of CVSIM (CVSim-21)
Sources for the research version of CVSim, which includes the six-compartment teaching model available above as well as a more detailed model containing 21 compartments, are available as a gzip-compressed tar archive, or you may get individual files from the source tree.
Precompiled binaries of the research version of CVSim are also available for GNU/Linux and Windows. (These binaries must be downloaded and unpacked before they can be run. Instructions for using them are included in each package.)
For reference, you may also wish to study an older implementation (see RCVSIM or XCVSim).
The notes below apply to both the educational and the research versions of CVSim.
The CVSim window is divided into four sections ("panes") and a toolbar:
The Simulation Control Toolbar includes six controls to stop and start the simulation and turn the control systems on and off:
 | Start the simulation |
 | Stop the simulation |
 | Turn on the arterial baroreflex control system |
 | Turn off the arterial baroreflex control system |
 | Turn on the cardiopulmonary reflex control system |
 | Turn off the cardiopulmonary reflex control system |
The Simulation Parameters Pane displays the simulation variables and outputs. (The Simulation Outputs Pane, which is located on a separate tab behind the Simulation Parameters Pane, is not functional in the current version of CVSim. In a future version, it will be used to select outputs to be recorded in a log file.)
The Graphics Pane displays anatomical and circuit representations of the simulation model.
Click and drag the vertical bar between the Simulation Parameters and Graphics panes to resize them.
The Strip Chart behaves like a chart recorder, plotting simulation outputs versus time and scrolling from right to left. The Plot Pane behaves like a flatbed XY plotter, plotting simulation outputs versus one another. Watch the Strip Chart and Plot demo.
Strip Chart and Plot panes can be undocked using the arrow icon at the upper right corner of the pane. Once undocked, they can be moved and resized, and it is possible to view more than one of each simultaneously. (Select New Strip Chart or New Plot from the main window's Plot menu to create additional strip charts or plots.)
There is no built-in facility for printing. Linux users can take a snapshot of the screen using the PrintScreen key, or of a single window (such as an undocked strip chart pane) using Alt+PrintScreen. Most image viewers (such as eog, gimp, gqview. or kview) can display and print these snapshots. Similar facilities may be available on other platforms.
The educational version includes the six-compartment model only, and there are minor user-interface differences with respect to the research version. Notably, the menu bar of the educational version includes a Patient menu; selecting a patient allows a student to explore what perturbations of cardiovascular parameters might account for a given set of symptoms, and what interventions might be effective in improving the CV state of the virtual patient. The research version includes both 6- and 21-compartment models (you must choose one of these at the beginning of the simulation), and offers greater flexibility in performing experiments using the model. The current research version allows the user to perform virtual tilt tests, for example.
There are risks inherent in running Java as well as any other
applications downloaded from the Internet. We have checked CVSim very
carefully to ensure that downloading and running it will not pose a
risk to your privacy, your personal or other files, your computer, or
those of anyone else. JRE 7, and to a lesser extent JRE 6, will alert
you with respect to the risks; the notes below summarize the alerts
that you should expect to encounter when launching CVSim.
Running on JRE 7
JRE 7 will alert you to the dangers of running untrusted Java applications at least 3 times before allowing you to do so. The first of these alerts has the title Application Blocked, and the text
Application Blocked by Security Settings
Your security settings have blocked a self-signed application from running
The workaround for this alert is described at http://www.java.com/en/download/help/java_blocked.xml :
Go to the Java Control Panel (On Windows, click Start and then Configure Java)
[On Windows 7, click the Windows logo at the lower left corner of the screen, then All Programs, then Java, then Configure Java.]
Click on the Security tab
Click on the Edit Site List button
Click the Add in the Exception Site List window
Click in the empty field under Location field to enter the URL
In the Location field, type
http://physionet.org
and click OK. Now this window pops up:
Including an HTTP Location on the Exception Site List is considered a security risk Location: http://physionet.org Locations that use HTTP are a security risk and may compromise the personal information on your computer. We recommend including only HTTPS sites on the Exception Site List. Click Continue to accept this location or Cancel to abort this change.
Click Continue, then click OK again. These alerts should not reappear on later use of CVSim. Click again on the CVSim link, and a final alert (which will return on each use of CVSim) will appear:
Security Warning
Do you want to run this application?
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Location: http://physionet.org
Running this application may be a security risk
Risk: This application will run with unrestricted access which may put
your computer and personal information at risk. The information
provided is unreliable or unknown so it is recommended not to run
this application unless you are familiar with its source
More information
Select the box below, then click Run to start the application
[ ] I accept the risk and want to run this application [Run] [Cancel]
Check the box and click Run.
Running on JRE 6
The first time you run CVSim, a warning will appear. (Internet Explorer users: The security warning may be displayed behind your browser.)
Click Run. (To avoid the warning in the future, first check Always trust content from this publisher).
This implementation of CVSim is the work of Catherine Dunn and Thomas Heldt, with contributions from Ali Saeed and Brandon Pierquet.
Previous implementations were written by Bob Sah (1983), George Moody (1985), Tim Davis (1989), Rama Mukkamala (2001), Thomas Heldt (2002), and by Eun Bo Shim and his students (2003). The circulatory model used in CVSim was created by Roger Mark, based on an analog model of JG Defares and colleagues [2]. The CVSim model was elaborated by Thomas Heldt, Eun Bo Shim, Roger Kamm, and Roger Mark [3].
Development of CVSim was supported in part through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-58 with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (grants CA00106, CA00205, and CA00403).
[1] T Heldt, R Mukkamala, GB Moody, and RG Mark. CVSim: An Open-Source Cardiovascular Simulator for Teaching and Research. Open Pacing, Electrophysiol & Ther J 3:45-54 (2010).
[2] JG Defares, JJ Osborne, and HH Hara. Theoretical synthesis of the cardiovascular system. Study I: The controlled system. Acta Physiol Pharmacol Neerl 12:189-265 (1963).
[3] T Heldt, EB Shim, RD Kamm, and RG Mark. Computational modeling of cardiovascular response to orthostatic stress. J Appl Physiol 92(3):1239-1254 (2002 March 1).
