We live in an exciting time for the field of galactic archaeology. Due to recent large scale surveys such as the European GAIA-ESO project, we have access to a growing abundance of stellar age and chemical composition information for stars of the Milky Way. Codes such as RAMSES-CH allow us to model the chemodynamical evolution of the Milky Way, and trace the evolution of elements with time. Such important galactic evolutionary tracer elements are Mg, O and Fe. There are still inconsistencies in how simulations and observations are compared which is becoming increasingly important as more accurate data becomes available. Traditionally observers select individual stars using photometric and surface gravity selection functions, whereas the study of simulation data typically use spatial selection functions alone. I will discuss analytical methods of sampling a simulation dataset in an observational-like manner, with a chemodynamical simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy as an example. Additionally I shall discuss the application of the Synthetic Colour Magnitude Diagram Tool (SynCMD) to the simulated galaxy which enables us to apply photometric and surface gravity selection functions on simulated stars, as well as a spatial selection function.