Mathematical Support and Software of Visual Filtering of Alternatives in Multi-criteria Decision Making Problems

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of multi-criteria decision-making problems, which are characterized by a large number of options and alternatives. It is proposed to use visual filtering of graphic images describing the corresponding alternatives as one of the stages in decision-making in such tasks. The approaches and requirements for the construction of graphic images of alternatives are considered. Describes the steps and algorithms for constructing visual images of alternatives, based on the radial and pie charts, and include the normalization procedure. It describes software that implements the proposed algorithms, as well as providing interactive interaction with an expert for visual filtering of multi-criteria alternatives. Additionally, the capabilities of the developed software are described, which include filtering alternatives based on threshold values, as well as the possibility of conducting a series of experiments in order to obtain the union or intersection of filtered sets of alternatives. A synthetic test for filtering 201 alternatives is described, each of which is described by 15 criteria. As a result of a series of experiments, this choice set was reduced by about 28 times. A description is also given of an experiment on visual filtering of real alternatives that describe estimates of the accuracy of calculating inviscid flow around a cone using several OpenFoam solvers. Each solver is characterized by 288 criteria, and according to the results of visual filtering, the advantage in the accuracy of the calculations of two solvers over the others is clearly established.