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Pathfinder User Manual - Thunderhead Engineering

1. Density 0 464515 m2 pers Figure 4 17 Add Rectangular Group of Occupants Property Panel Figure 4 18 Editing the distribution of profiles Once the properties have been set click drag to draw the filling rectangle Both points of the rectangle must lie in the same room Pp A gt O A IO A A Fr TA le dd bo Bw wu Y nS da n a A Placement OUnfom Random Count 20 Nane ccapet Gap MMM Oak m Speed iisas Delay 00s Profle Defauk e Odensty E atte Eti crewest gt m Sue 0 4558m Color MS E Ter E sIO E ii ekkaco gt 0 5 2 0 m to 4 5 2 0 m Dim 4x4x0 m gt Figure 4 19 Distributing occupants in a rectangular region 63 Pathfinder User Manual When any occupants are selected the property panel allows the occupants name profile behavior and color to be edited The occupants speed time delay and size are also displayed from the occupant s profile and can be made editable by selecting Custom from the profile drop down menu Placement in rooms In addition to distributing occupants in placement regions occupants can be distributed throughout entire rooms To do this select the desired rooms and choose Add Occupants from the Model menu or the right click menu as shown in Figure 4 20 This will bring up the Add Occupants dialog For an explanation of the dialog s options please see the section Group Placement Click the OK button after selecting the des
2. Pathfinder also includes a second program designed specifically for high performance visualization of 3D time history The 3D Results program is shown in Figure 1 2 In this image occupants are gathering at a refuge area before proceeding to elevators Transparency has been used to help view occupants on the refuge floor Pathfinder User Manual r 3D Pathfinder 2012 x64 elevator tower refuge File Agents Scene View Help a ana Ex be tA Floor Separation m 0 Ee Wall Height m Reverse e U Time 1 24 10 03 Speed 1X Framerate 8 5 fps Figure 1 2 An example of the 3D Results view showing occupants gathering at a refuge area before proceeding to elevators Transparency has been used to help view the occupants In addition to 3D visualization Pathfinder also provides output in the form of 2D time history plots of CSV comma separated values out files and a text summary of room clearing times and doorway flow rates An example time history plot can be seen in Figure 1 3 This plot shows the number of occupants in the refuge area and the total number of occupants in the building 4 Occupant Counts C Tower Refuge elevator tower refuge roomscsv n File Edit View Mode Floors gt Floor 52 0 m gt Stair05 Copy 12 Floors gt Floor 52 0 m gt Stair06 Copy 12 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room00 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cc Remaining Total Fl
3. 4 Select all the components that should be auto sorted if everything should be sorted select the Floors top node 5 Right click the selection and from the shortcut menu click Sort into Floors 6 The appropriate floors will be created and all selected items will be sorted into the appropriate floors NOTE This will not delete any existing floors If there are undesired existing floors first move the navigation components out of them to another floor that will be kept delete the undesired floors and then perform Sort into Floors Manually creating floors Floors can also be created manually at any time To do so click on the floor drop down box above the Navigation View and select lt Add New gt as shown in Figure 3 3 A dialog will open asking for the floor location Enter the Z plane location or click on a snap point in the 3D or 2D view and click okay This Z plane will be used to update the drawing tools working Z location when this floor is made active By default the name of the floor is Floor x where x is the working plane of the floor If Set as active floor is selected in the new floor dialog the floor is set to be the active floor in the model after being created If Resort existing egress components into new floor is selected then all existing components that belong in the new floor will be moved to it iy Pathfinder 2011 untitled File Edit Model View Simulation Results Help Enter Floor Loc
4. 54 Pathfinder User Manual Advanced Speed Properties A Speed Constant w 1 19 m s Speed Density Profile SFPE ee NOTE When simulating in SFPE mode all advanced speed properties are ignored except for Speed Reset to Defaults Cancel Figure 4 4 Advanced Speed Properties dialog Each tab in the dialog allows the customization of occupant speed on each terrain type in Pathfinder including Level Terrain Stairs and Ramps On the Level Terrain tab the following properties can be modified e Speed This defines the occupant s maximum speed This is the same as the Speed property in the Characterstics tab of the Edit Profiles dialog only without an advanced option e Speed Density Profile This can be used to set the occupant s speed as a function of the surrounding occupant density also known as the fundamental diagram One of three options may be chosen for the profile O SFPE The fundamental diagram as specified in the Engineering Guide to Human Behavior in Fire SFPE 2003 is used to adjust occupant speed Constant The maximum speed is multiplied by a constant factor to determine the occupant s speed In most cases the occupant will either try to move this speed or stop From Table The speed is entered as a fraction of the occupant s maximum speed as a function of surrounding occupant density The values are entered in the Speed Density Profile dialog as shown in Figure 4 5 The profile is
5. 84 Pathfinder User Manual with any very small i e thin angles Using Min Angle values greater than 30 degrees can cause Pathfinder to freeze when it attempts to generate a simulation input file Behavior Parameters The Behavior tab allows you to set options for Pathfinder s two primary simulation modes SFPE and Steering To select a simulation mode choose SFPE or Steering from the Behavior Mode drop down box SFPE Mode Parameters The SFPE mode uses the set of assumptions presented in the Engineering Guide to Human Behavior in Fire SFPE 2003 and can give answers extremely similar to these hand calculations depending on selected assumptions In SFPE simulations the mechanism that controls simulation movement is the door queue The SFPE mode uses a simple set of assumptions and usually completes much faster than a comparable steering mode simulation in terms of CPU time Simulation Parameters Max Room Density 1 88 pers m Minimum Speed Fraction 0 15 Door Flow Rate Boundary Layer 15 0 cm Flow Rates at High Density Use a Calculated Specific Flow Always Use Max Specific Flow ox cancel Figure 8 4 SFPE Behavior tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog The SFPE mode supports the following options e Max Room Density controls the density at which doors will no longer admit occupants into a room Using an artificially low value for this number will give faster evacuation times Using a higher number 3 6 3
6. Always Open Figure 3 29 Stair door property dialog 30 Pathfinder User Manual Ramps Ramps are nearly identical to stairs in how they are created and represented Like stairs they have two implicit doors at either end and always take the shape of a rectangular piece of geometry They also have very similar creation tools the two point ramp tool my and the one point ramp tool be The key difference between ramps and stairs is that ramps do not affect the speed at which occupants travel Escalators Pathfinder provides some limited support for escalators They are essentially stairs with slightly modified properties To create an escalator perform the following Create a stair as discussed previously Select the stair or several so its properties are visible in the property panel as shown in Figure 3 28 3 Seta one way direction for the stair 4 Click the Speed Modifier drop down and choose Speed Constant as shown in Figure 3 30 5 Edit the speed of the escalator in the speed constant field As with the Speed Modifier for stairs the Speed Constant can be time variable This would normally be used to turn the escalators on or off throughout the simulation by using the values 1 0 and 0 0 respectively but any value can be entered One way X Speed Constant Always 1 0 m s Additional Info Figure 3 30 Changing a stair into an escalator In the results view escalators do not appear differently than stairs By
7. This allows them to go through in either direction 26 Pathfinder User Manual Figure 3 22 Scripted Events dialog Stalrs Stairs in Pathfinder are represented by one straight run of steps They can be created with two tools One tool allows creation of stairs between two semi parallel boundaries of rooms and the other allows creation of stairs that extend from one room boundary until a criterion is met such as number of steps height of stairs etc or until another room is reached One requirement of all stairs for successful simulation is that each end of the stairs must connect to boundary edges of the rooms meaning that there must be empty space at the top of the stairway and empty space below the bottom This requirement is shown in Figure 3 23 The size of the gap must be greater than or equal to the radius of the largest occupant to travel on the stairs iy Pathfinder untitled Dag Gi Pathfinder untitled i Das Fe pe Edt Model Wew Smision Boba Cex amo 0 ch Cex sian O e Uenon BE BO a RIA FA Fion Ficar 0 0 m OBDOD BE BO Be ie KxRetQa lo ce irpanes Geometry Profiles a Occupants Foxs oor 0 8 m GoeEEsocO Geek Esco gt a Shows a stair that will not simulate correctly b Shows a stair that will simulate correctly Figure 3 23 Stair geometry requirements Stairs between edges One way to create stairs is to draw them be
8. Y 6 250 0 Y 7 500 0 Y 9 000 Z 0 500 Z 1 000 Z 1 500 0 Z 2 000 Z 2 500 EB BB EBB BB Time 1 07 1 48 Framerate 475 4 fps Figure 9 7 FDS Slices Slices When FDS results are loaded the Navigation View will show the FDS slices that are available Initially all slices are unloaded and must be manually loaded to show them in the results To load a slice either double click it in the navigation view or right click it and select Show When loaded the slice name will appear in bold in the navigation view Several slices may be loaded at the same time as long as they all show the same quantity for example TEMPERATURE To load all slices of a particular quantity at once double click the desired quantity in the navigation view or right click and choose Show To unload a slice double click a loaded one in the navigation view or right click it and select Hide Similarly all slices may be unloaded by performing this for the currently loaded quantity To change the coloring or data range of the slices under the FDS Results menu choose Preferences The preferences dialog will open as shown in Figure 9 8 101 Pathfinder User Manual FOS Preferences 4 Interpolate Data Auto Range Minimum Yalue Maximum Value 113 906 Opacity 75 to Colorbar Shading Rainbow Number of Colors 256 Inverk Colors Figure 9 8 FDS preferen
9. the occupant and their path if displayed will turn yellow Multiple occupants can be selected by holding CTRL when clicking them They can be de selected by clicking anywhere else in the model Viewing multi floor problems Some models are composed of several floors causing each floor to obscure the one below it as shown in Figure 9 5 a Pathfinder provides a variety of options for viewing the model such that the occupants inside can be easily observed One option is to view the model with the floors stacked vertically but separated by a set amount Another option is to view the model with the floors laid out in the XY plane so that they can all be viewed from overhead Both options allow a wall clip height to be specified To use any of the layout options floors must first be defined If the floors were defined in the pre processor they will carry through to the 3D visualization and no additional input is needed If they have not been defined or they need to be modified this can be done by opening the Scene menu and selecting Edit Floors A dialog will appear that shows a list of the Z locations of the floors as shown in Figure 9 4 From this list floor locations can be added removed and modified Once OK is pressed the 3D results viewer will partition the geometry among the floors such that the bottom floor contains all geometry from ce to the next floor s location the top floor contains all geometry from its location to 09 and ev
10. 13 Agent handles 77 Pathfinder User Manual Waypoint handles When a waypoint is selected five handles are displayed as shown in Figure 6 14 The center handle allows the waypoint to be moved to another location similarly to the occupant handle The four handles on the perimeter of the circle can be used to change the arrival radius of the waypoint Pathfinder 2011 untitled a a gt LN File Edit Model View Simulation Results Help asHa ovx o o eo a AN A a E Behavior Goto Any Exit Action Goto 4 2 3 5 0 Arrival Radius 2 33892 m PP Add Goto Waypoint 0 a o a p l a ud uf 4 3 a Dev o o 7 239 5 61 5 05 m Figure 6 14 Waypoint handles 78 Pathfinder User Manual 7 Model Analysis Pathfinder contains some useful tools to analyze various properties of a model Measuring Distances Distances can be measured by using the measuring tool To do so select the measuring tool from the 3D or 2D view Left click a series of points to define a path along which to measure a distance When done defining points right click The cumulative point to point distance is displayed in a dialog box When measuring distances in the 3D view the distance is taken as the actual distance between snapped points When measuring distances in the 2D view however the distance is taken by projecting the points onto a plane parallel to the camera view plane and then t
11. 64 0 m gt Room00 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 64 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Ct F Floors gt Floor 64 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 64 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 64 0 m gt Room16 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 64 0 m gt Room16 Copy 1 Cc _ ri ri En ee Y y A i 100 0 200 0 300 0 400 0 500 0 600 0 700 0 Time in Seconds Figure 1 3 An example time history graph Pathfinder User Manual Model Representation The movement environment is a 3D triangulated mesh Figure 1 4 designed to match the real dimensions of a building model This movement mesh can be entered manually or automatically based on imported data e g FDS geometry Walls and other impassable areas are represented as gaps in the navigation mesh These objects are not actually passed along to the simulator but are represented implicitly because occupants cannot move in places where no navigation mesh has been created Doors are represented as special navigation mesh edges In all simulations doors provide a mechanism for joining rooms and tracking occupant flow Depending on the specific selection of simulation options doors may also be used to explicitly control occupant flow Stairways are also represented as special navigation mesh edges and triangles Occupant movement speed is reduced to a factor of their level travel speed
12. 7 Importing Files 38 Merge 19 Navigation View 7 Normal Tools 10 Obstructions 18 22 23 Occupant Group Tool 62 Occupant Tool 62 Occupants 7 Adding 62 Creating 50 Stuck 88 One Point Stair Tool 29 Orbit Tool 9 Orthographic Camera 8 Pan Tool 9 Perspective Camera 8 Polygonal Room Tool 16 22 Profiles 7 50 Property Panel 8 Reactive Steering Mode 85 86 Rectangular Room Tool 17 22 Refresh Results 97 Roam Tool 9 Room History File 91 Rooms 13 16 Adding New Rooms 16 Dividing 19 Merging Rooms 19 Separating Rooms 19 Run Simulation 86 Run Simulation Dialog 86 Separate 20 SFPE Mode 85 Show Occupant Paths 97 Simulation Parameters Dialog 83 Snap Grid 10 Snapshot 88 Stairs 13 27 Between Edges 27 Extending from one Edge 28 Sticky Tools 10 Summary Report 89 Two Point Stair Tool 28 Views 7 Drawing in 10 Navigation View 7 Resetting 9 Visibility 8 Wall Tool 23 Walls 23 Zoom Tool 9
13. ES psm_carpet_grey jpg a EA UE a 1225 psm_concrete jpg ii El La fa Width 1 0m 43 psm_fire jpa Height 1 0m ee psm_grass_big jpg Opacity ao psm_green64 jpg Preview psm_metal jpg ES psm_shag jpg psm_spruce jpg a psm_stripes jpg id psm_tile jpg be psm_wood1 jpg ad psm_wood2 jpg LAN nee Rosewood Natural Low Glq Figure 3 48 Material dialog Pathfinder provides some default database materials Most of these materials start with the prefix psm_ asin PyroSim Other materials were either created manually by the user or were imported with the CAD or PyroSim file Materials can be added manually by clicking Import under the material list Currently a new material must be created from an image on disk that defines the texture of the material The image is copied into the database directory Newly created materials are added to the database and can be used across instances of Pathfinder 48 Pathfinder User Manual Materials that were imported are only stored in the current Pathfinder file They are not available when a new model is created and there is currently no way to import these into the database Materials can be deleted by clicking Remove under the material list If the material exists in the database all its associated files in the database directory will also be permanently removed The following material properties can be edited e Color
14. Floor Floor 0 0R 06e t Moa MA MM a e E E Se a a D D e z 0 o l l e sl b 3 a a a Dev e ee Figure 3 41 Drawing rooms over a background image 42 Pathfinder User Manual To draw rooms on top of a background image refer to the section Rooms on page 16 Working with 3D CAD PyroSim and FDS files Because 3D CAD PyroSim and FDS files import 3D data they provide the most helpful information for accurately extracting navigation area Navigation area can be extracted on a room by room basis using the Extract floors tool E from the 3D or 2D views The tool properties for this tool are shown in Figure 3 42 The Max Slope refers to the maximum grade that a person can walk on Only imported polygons that have a slope less than this will be included in the result Max Head Height refers to the maximum height of all the agents that will be included in the simulation This parameter is used to subtract overhead obstructions from the resulting room The Gap Tolerance provides some control in dealing with imperfections in the imported data If walls are closer than the gap tolerance Pathfinder will add an extra thin wall in that area helping to split of rooms so the result does not bleed into undesired areas X 209 893 m Max Slope 45 0 9 Y 345 851 m Max Head Height 1 8288 m Extract Z 0 0m Gap Tolerance 15 24 cm Figure 3 42 Property panel for the floor extraction tool To extract a room
15. Properties dialog are ignored Pressing Reset to Defaults in the Advanced Speed Properties dialog will reset all advanced speed properties to their default values in Pathfinder Seeds Each occupant has a unique random seed that determines the specific values generated from a profile distribution Each of these occupant specific values can be seen by selecting an individual occupant These specific values will never change unless the distribution is changed in the profile or a new seed is manually generated for the occupant This ensures that two simulation runs with the same input model will give the same answer New seeds can be generated for occupants by right clicking the occupants and selecting Randomize For an example of the effects of the changing the seed or profile consider the following scenario 1 A profile has been created using a uniform distribution of speed on the range 1 m s to 2 m s An occupant is created using this profile 3 Using the occupant s unique random seed Pathfinder assigns the occupant a speed of 1 6 m s based on the occupant s profile 4 The simulation is run several times and each time the occupant has a maximum speed of 1 6 m s 5 The occupant s profile is changed so that its speed range is 5 m s to 1 m s Pathfinder assigns the occupant a new maximum speed of 6 m s which is used for all subsequent simulations 7 The user randomizes the occupant and Pathfinder assigns a new maximum speed of 91
16. Revit model with the imported geometry displayed was slow at 5 frames sec When only the Pathfinder navigation mesh was displayed the Revit model was responsive File Agents Scene View Help eR Dp gt h 9 Floor Separaton m O Set Wall Height m O Set Exited 1602 50000 7 q oon aan pe cat a es 06000090 OC 0600009 OC Time 0 29 amp 1 a Model with 50 000 people b Revit import model with 3 000 people Figure 1 5 Models used for system requirements comparison Table 1 1 Comparison of performance for the two models meter Parameter cage nevi impot Number of occupants 50 000 3 000 Number navigation triangles A 21 480 Number Revit face primitives O 1 300 000 70 The minimum requirements to run Pathfinder include e 32 or 64 bit Windows XP Windows 7 or higher strongly recommended e A processor the performance of an Intel 5 e 4GBof RAM e Graphics support for OpenGL 1 2 For a balanced performance we recommend e 64 bit Windows 7 or higher e Intel i7 3770 3 4 GHz 4 Cores processor e 8 GB of RAM e Graphics support for OpenGL 3 2 with an installed graphics card for large Revit models Pathfinder User Manual Revit models place a premium on graphics capability We have found that mid cost gaming graphics cards GeForce GTX 570 Radeon HD 7870 or equivalent allow us to display relative large Revit models with good performance Benchmarking sites that we find useful to compare CPU
17. Tread 27 94cm op Door Edit Speed Modifier Always 1 0 2 Visible Opacity 100 0 o 7 Z Length 5 39635 m Bottom Door Edit Additional Info Figure 3 28 Stair property panel e Riser and Tread Together these parameters control the speed at which occupants can travel on the stairs during simulation While the one point stair tool uses the tread rise and run to create the initial shape of the stair these properties can later be changed without affecting the stair shape e Length The total length of the stair from the bottom to top edge This is the same as the hypotenuse formed by the total stair rise and total stair run e Width The width of the stair e Top Door and Bottom Door Clicking these links show the dialog in Figure 3 29 Here properties of each implicit door can be edited independently of the other door including Width Flowrate and State For more information on these properties see Door properties on page 26 e One way Indicates whether the stair should only allow occupants to travel in one direction and if so which direction e Speed Modifier A time variable factor that affects the soeed of occupants who travels on the stair This acts the same as the Speed Modifier property for rooms see Room properties on page 20 e Additional Info Clicking this link shows additional information about the stair such as its geometric bounding box area and number of occupants STAIR WIDTH 4 Flowrate 3 4 pers s State
18. a face has a material applied the material s display settings override that of the object color and opacity when the Show Materials E option is selected in the 2D View or the 3D View see View Options on page 10 All display properties can be set through the properties panel when imported geometry is selected as shown in Figure 3 47 Name AcDbidSolid 3E7 Material on X Bounds 7 42 m 12 27 m Y Visible Color E Y Bounds 93 36 m 96 10 m Indude in room extraction Oparity 100 0 Z Bounds 0 98 m 0 99 m Figure 3 47 Imported Geometry property panel e Visible Whether the selected object is currently visible e Include in room extraction Whether the object should be considered when using the room extraction tool e Material The material applied to the selected faces when the Show Materials option is turned on Clicking the material button will open the Material Dialog as shown in Figure 3 48 on page 48 In this dialog the material can either be edited or a new material can be applied to the faces by selecting one from the list on the left and pressing the OK button To remove the reference to the material select the lt No Material gt option from the material list NOTE Because materials can be shared among faces editing a material applied to one face will also change the visual appearance of all faces referencing that material e Color The color of the selected objects when they have no material or th
19. a room and the edge must not be shared between two rooms Exit doors are displayed the same as thin doors except that they are green as shown in Figure 3 38 G Pathfinder untitled Jog Ble Edt Model View Simulation cha Cex sin Oo OBRA BOBO Sa oxeQR Ho BEsoa gt 128 688 81 098 183 83 m Figure 3 38 An exit door 37 Pathfinder User Manual Importing Files Pathfinder can import a number of image and geometry files to aid in both drawing and automatically extracting rooms This includes several image formats DXF DWG FDS and PyroSim files Importing images Background images can be imported by clicking Add a Background Image on the Model menu When clicked a dialog will appear prompting for an image file The following image formats are currently supported e GIF e JPG e PNG After a file is selected a new dialog will appear as shown in Figure 3 39 This dialog allows properties of the image to be specified so that the proper scaling rotation and offset can be applied To specify the scaling for the image two points A and B and a distance between them can be specified To specify the rotation of the image an angle can be input that specifies the angle of the vector from A to B with the vector 1 0 0 As shown in the figure the A gt B vector should be 90 degrees from the X axis The image will automatically be rotated when finished Finally an anchor point can be specified on the
20. average filter to the density contour and then adding a maximum filter to this averaging filter Adding Removing Contours By default a results file will contain several contours More can be added or removed at any time Adding a contour can be done in one of two ways e On the Analysis menu select New occupant contour Es or e Right click the Occupant Contours group in the navigation view and select New occupant contour Performing either of these actions will open the New Occupant Contour dialog In this dialog select the desired contour quantity and click OK This will create the new contour and show its properties dialog as discussed below Contours can be removed at any time by selecting the desired contour in the navigation view and either pressing DELETE on the keyboard or selecting Delete 2 from the right click menu Adding Contour Filters Contour filters can be added at any time in one of two ways e On the Analysis menu select New contour filter 5 or e Inthe navigation menu right click the contour to filter and select Add filter This will show the New Filtered Occupant Contour dialog as shown in Figure 9 10 Select the desired properties and press OK to create the filter and show its properties dialog New Filtered Occupant Contour OO o Contour Density Filter Average hal OR cancel Figure 9 10 New Filtered Occupant Contour dialog 104 Pathfinder User Manu
21. both of these tools can be used on existing geometry to create negative areas Creating new geometry over existing areas removes any interfering portion from those 17 Pathfinder User Manual areas The newly created geometry can then be deleted leaving the negative space behind This is discussed further in the section Arbitrarily shaped obstructions desks tables etc Drawing Plane Each room tool draws on a particular Z plane that is specified in the property panel for the tool as shown in Figure 3 7 Z Plane 11 27 m Pick Z from Scene Figure 3 7 Drawing plane property The Z plane can be specified either manually by typing the location into the Z Plane field or by picking the location from the 2D or 3D View as follows Select one of the room drawing tools In the tool property panel click Pick Z from Scene This will clear the tool property panel while waiting for the user to click a location 3 Click a point in either the 3D View or a 2D View The tool property panel will return for the selected drawing tool and the Z Plane field will be filled with the Z coordinate of the clicked location Thin walls Thin internal walls or boundaries can be added to rooms with the Thin Wall tool E To use this tool click two points in the model as shown in Figure 3 8 Pathfinder will attempt to connect these two points with an internal boundary edge NOTE In some circumstances Pathfinder may have trouble connecting the two
22. copy by the rotate angle If copying rooms and resulting copies overlap one another the most recent copies take precedence over earlier ones meaning that earlier ones will have area subtracted from them An array is shown in Figure 6 6 O 76ELE2E00 see DEERE EDO ser Figure 6 6 Creating an array of objects using the rotate tool Mirroring To mirror one or more objects about a plane select the objects and click the mirror tool 00 from the 2D or 3D view The property panel for the mirror tool is shown in Figure 6 7 Mirror Plane Normal Mode AR PAT Mirror 7 C Axis aligned X 0 0 m Copy Mode ES Cancel i E Custom x 0 0m Y 0 0 m Z 0 0m W 0 0 m Figure 6 7 Property panel for the mirror tool The object can be mirrored either manually or graphically e Manually Select Normal Mode and enter the plane about which to mirror This can be an axis aligned plane or a custom plane specified by the plane equation ax by cy d 0 Next click Mirror e Graphically This is performed most easily in one of the 2D views The mirror plane is always perpendicular to the camera s view plane Defining the plane requires two mouse clicks that define two points in the plane The steps for mirroring graphically are shown in Figure 6 8 74 Pathfinder User Manual P fee ekkoBnoo Ser SC FREe CBEESBra See Figure 6 8 Mirroring an object Objects can also be copied using the mirror tool To do so select the mirror
23. default occupants do not walk on moving escalators This can be changed by modifying the occupant s profile and selecting Walk on Escalators see Profiles This causes the escalator s speed constant to be added to the occupant s current speed on the escalator NOTE When escalators are turned off occupants will use them as stairs regardless of whether their profile indicates that they want to walk on escalators Moving Walkways Pathfinder also provides limited support for moving walkways This is similar to creating escalators but instead of setting a speed constant on an existing stair the speed constant is set on a flat ramp instead 31 Pathfinder User Manual Elevators Pathfinder supports elevators in egress mode operation which is based on current thinking described in Using Elevators In Fires The basic operation of elevators in evacuations can be summarized as follows Each elevator has one discharge floor This is where the elevator starts at the beginning of the simulation and where it will take occupants it has picked up Each elevator has at least one pickup floor These are floors where the elevator will pick up occupants that it will take to the discharge floor An elevator is called on a pickup floor by an occupant when they come within 5 m of the elevator door The elevator uses a priority system to serve called floors By default floors are served from top to bottom however other floors can be given higher
24. defined as a piece wise linear function where sample points are entered into a table For densities within the entered range the speed fraction is interpolated For densities outside the range the speed fraction is equal to that entered for the nearest specified density A preview of the fundamental diagram is shown to the right of the table The SFPE profile which is the default profile may be loaded by clicking Load SFPE profile below the table NOTE The loaded SFPE profile has a minimum value of 15 of the occupant s maximum speed This ensures that occupants will not become stuck at high densities 55 Pathfinder User Manual E InsertRow Speed Density Profile ft Remove Row Previous Values New Values T th a oo wy T o E 5 157 Ln L 130 200 2 50 100 Density persim Load SFPE profile Figure 4 5 Speed Density Profile Dialog The following properties may be entered in the Stairs tab e Speed Fraction Up This defines a speed factor when the occupant travels up stairs As with the Speed Density Profile this factor is multiplied by occupant s maximum speed to determine their speed up stairs This may be entered in one of three ways o SFPE The assumptions from the SFPE Engineering Guide to Human Behavior in Fire are used to determine the speed fraction up stairs This option uses the rise and run of the stair to determine the speed Constant A constant factor is applied to t
25. disk whenever that frame is needed again NOTE While this option may improve performance somewhat it can also produce very large files especially if many frames are skipped during seeking The reason is that Pathfinder reserves enough space in the optimization file for each missing frame such that it can store the frame uncompressed at a later time In addition this option works best if the results are stored on a disk volume formatted as NTFS The previous two optimization options however calculate frames sequentially producing compressed frames of data These methods result in much smaller files and work well on any file system Once a contour has been optimized there are some actions that may cause the optimization to become invalid Pathfinder will re optimize if necessary when the user requests that it be optimized again using one of the above methods The following actions may cause a contour optimization to become invalid e Re running the simulation e Re writing the input file from the user interface e Modifying one of the global contour properties as described previously e Modifying an individual contour s generation properties as described previously e Modifying the properties of a contour that another contour depends on For instance modifying the properties of the density contour will invalidate the optimization for any filter that has been applied to that density contour such as an average density or maximum density fil
26. exit from each point on the floor given the current playback time NOTE There will only be data from occupants that have a simulated exit time If this quantity is viewed before a simulation is complete the results may be incomplete The contour will update however when results are refreshed e Usage Instantaneous Shows where occupants currently exist on the floor This can be used as an alternative to viewing individual occupants which is useful when viewing large models from afar e Usage Accumulated Shows a time integrated version of Usage which allows the user to see how much time is spent on each area of the floor In addition to the basic contours Pathfinder also provides the ability to filter any contour as follows 103 Pathfinder User Manual e Average Averages the values of the base contour over a trailing time interval default 30 s This can be useful for smoothing data over time and to act as a low pass filter e Maximum Calculates the maximum contour value over a trailing time interval default unlimited The ability to filter any contour gives the user a great deal of flexibility in visualizing contours For instance a contour could be created that displays the maximum average density The averaging filter would act as a low pass filter that reduces high density peaks that may be short lived The maximum filter would then be used to find the maximum of this smoothed data This would be created by adding an
27. floor its doors touch along the elevator shaft Individual elevator doors can be disabled however to prevent entering exiting the elevator through those doors on specific floors To do so right click the elevator door on the desired floor from the Navigation View or 3D 2D View and select Disable from the right click menu To re enable it right 36 Pathfinder User Manual click the door from the Navigation View and select Enable Alternatively right click an elevator level and select Disable to disconnect all the elevator s doors on that level effectively preventing the elevator from picking up occupants on that level Call Sets By default each elevator is called individually Elevators can be grouped into call sets however so that when one is called all elevators in the call set respond and travel to the pickup level To create a call set create a group in the top Elevators group and add the desired elevators to the new group All elevators in the group will be in the same call set Serr Elevators Efi Call Set 1 A E Elevator00 E E Elevator01 S fia Call Set 2 l a Elevator03 Go Elevatord4 Figure 3 37 Elevator call sets Exits In Pathfinder exits are merely thin doors that exist on the boundary of the model An exit can only have a room on one of its sides Exits are created in almost the same way as thin doors as discussed in the section Thin doors The only difference is that the door must lie on an edge of
28. for it to arrive enter it and then wait for it to reach the discharge floor Once they reach the discharge floor they can begin their next action The Goto Elevators action can only be used for occupants who are not on the discharge floor of the desired elevator If multiple elevators are specified for the action the occupant will use the one that allows them to reach the discharge floor fastest To add a Goto Elevators action click the Add Goto Elevators button from the behavior actions list The creation panel will appear as in Figure 4 14 Either click the Elevators link to specify the desired elevators with a dialog or left click the desired elevators in the 3D or 2D View Right click in the 3D 2D View to finish selecting the elevators and create the action or click Create Create Add to Behavior Goto Elevators Elevators Elevator00 Cancel Figure 4 14 Goto Elevators creation panel Wait action A Wait action tells an occupant to wait in their current location for a certain amount of time Once that time has elapsed they will begin their next action The manner in which they wait will vary depending on their most recent destination For instance if their previous destination was a waypoint they will try to stay close to the center of the waypoint If the previous destination was a room they will try to move toward a wall of the room away from all doors This allows other occupants to enter the room If their previou
29. hs dia ox o 0o J rox aroo OOOO a a Floor Creation Sorting Mew Egress Components le Y Auto sart egress components Group ay Floor 0 0 m y Vsbie Y Bounds 0 00 m 3 50 m Pee 0 y EY Prottes W Color ZBounde 0 00m 0 00 m Density 0 0 perafe BO Fhe CREEK EBoO ces 00 FH eKBERSHoASe4 no 18 857 4 763 23 35 m he ni 26 203 19 663 0 001 m Change Group Delete Rename Sort into Floors Select Occupants Select Connected Components Add Occupants Create Elevator bb Sente cerro Set Z Hide Figure 3 31 Creating an Elevator 33 Pathfinder User Manual Name Nominal Load 18 0 pers Elevator Geometry Floor 27 0 m Room08 Copy 9 Travel Direction x 10 0 Y 0 0 f 10 Elevator Bounds Bottom Floor lowest Top Floor Highest Elevator Timing Acceleration 1 2 m s Max Velocity 2 5m Open Close Time 7 05 Figure 3 32 New Elevator dialog Elevator representation Once an elevator is created it will appear in the model as a series of rooms and doors connected by a transparent elevator shaft as shown in Figure 3 33 There is one room and set of doors for each floor to which the elevator can connect In the 3D and 2D Views each room is shaped the same as the base room that created the elevator In the Navigation View each room is shown under the elevator rather than the Floors top node In add
30. image that indicates where that point is located in 3D space 38 Pathfinder User Manual ES Configure Background Image ix ey Configure Background Image 1 Choose image file C Documents and Settings okonski My Documents Gallery Main test png 1 Choose image file C Documents and Settings okonski My Documents Gallery Main test png 2 Set Scale 2 Set Scale The Scale determines how big The Scale determines how big the image will appear in the the image will appear in the model To set the scale Find model To set the scale Find two points in the image that are two points in the image that are a known distance apart and n a known distance apart and use the buttons Choose Point E a use the buttons Choose Point A and Choose Point B to set A and Choose Point B to set the two points Then specify the two points Then specify their separation in model me their separation in model coordinates below coordinates below Choose Point A Choose Point B Dist A to B be Dist Ato B 5 0m A gt B angle A gt B angle 90 0 Set Anchor Point E Set Anchor Point The Anchor Point is a reference P The Anchor Point is a reference S nemine ai to j ca N ta coa ver to place the image in the model J place the image in the model To set it make sure the button a LET To set it make sure the button Choose Anchor Point is 5 y i Choose Anchor Point is selected below and click on the selec
31. itself was selected when adding the action then the new action will be appended to the end of the list If instead an action was selected when the new action was created then the new action is inserted directly after that selected action Actions always occur in the order shown in the Navigation View For instance as shown in Figure 4 11 an occupant using Behavior1 would first go to any elevator then go to Room00 then wait for 20 59 Pathfinder User Manual seconds then go to Room09 and finally exit The actions can be reordered at any time except exiting by dragging and dropping an action in the list in the Navigation View 3 49 Behaviors bf Goto Any Exit 348 Behavior1 oa Goto Any Elevator dl Goto Room00 ED Wait 20 0 s be Goto Roomds Figure 4 11 Example of action order for a behavior Goto Waypoint action A Goto Waypoint action specifies that an occupant should go toward a specific point on the navigation mesh Once they arrive within a certain radius of the point they will move on to the next action in their behavior To add one of these actions click the Add Goto Waypoint button from the behavior actions list When adding the waypoint the creation panel will look like Figure 4 12 The Location specifies where the occupant must head This must be a point on the navigation mesh The Arrival Radius defines a circular area around the point These parameters can be entered manually in
32. points If this occurs try limiting the two points to one room or to the number of room boundaries crossed Vo 7u0eekEsMoo ces P FBeo BRRESHoAa ce Figure 3 8 Adding a thin wall to a room 18 Pathfinder User Manual Splitting rooms Rooms can be split into two or more pieces using the Thin Wall tool To do this specify the two points such that they are on the outermost boundary of the room to be divided The original geometry will be divided into two or more new rooms with that line as the boundary between them as shown in Figure 3 9 Figure 3 9 Dividing a room Note that drawing a thin wall between two boundaries of the room will not always split the rooms into multiple pieces as shown in Figure 3 10 In this case the tool will simply add a thin wall Ej Pathfinder untitled Jog EST YOx aaoo Far Floor 0 0m MICA Bo BO se PKR 2 treported Geonetry Profiles B Occupants Fos Floor 6 8m Geek E sco Figure 3 10 Special case for drawing a thin wall Separating and merging rooms In addition to dividing rooms Pathfinder has two additional means to aid in creating more complex room geometry e Merge The Merge command is used to join two or more rooms that share boundaries into one room To use it select the neighboring rooms and select Merge from either the Model menu or the right click menu NOTE Rooms can be merged even if they do not lie in the same plane as 19 Pathfinder U
33. the features of the new simulator the simulator described in this manual does not use any of the code from the original Pathfinder software System Requirements System requirements depend on the type of model being analyzed To illustrate this two different models were evaluated using a laptop running 64 bit Windows 8 Pro with an Intel Core 7 2 60 GHz processor 8 GB of RAM and NVIDIA NVS 5200M graphics card The first model had a single room with 50 000 occupants and did not include any imported geometry The second model imported a relatively complex Revit model to create the Pathfinder model and had 3 000 people Figure 1 5 Table 1 1 shows a comparison of the two models The key parameters are the number of people in the model and the model complexity measured by the number of navigation mesh triangles used in the Pathfinder solution and the number of imported Revit primitives triangles The simple model had only 4 triangles with the consequence that the movement calculation of the path for each person is simple and that display performance is related to the drawing of people The Revit model had 21 480 triangles for the navigation mesh but over 1 300 000 triangles for the Revit geometry Pathfinder User Manual The model with 50 000 people solved in about 18 minutes while the Revit model with 3 000 people took about 5 minutes The graphical display performance for the model with 50 000 people was responsive at 15 frames sec while the
34. the properties in the tool panel The created door will appear as an orange rectangle in the 3D and 2D views as shown in Figure 3 20 When simulating thick doors have a special representation the area of the door will be partitioned in two and each half is attached to its touching room A thin door is placed in the middle of the area to represent the thick door Note that the extra area attached to each room is neglected when the area of the room is reported in its property panel but it is included during simulation 25 Pathfinder User Manual S Pathfinder cocoran pth Ble Edt Model Wew Smdabon lua Cex am 0 7 7 SOLOHLGOLS CHHLOLGOLGOROOE a amp g di I 7 POLLOLDOH OSD OSADOODOHOOOOOO DE gt 13 SRRRRRR RRR RRR eRe eRe eRe reese gt bl pi 5 5 2 D 999 yg 2 se Jeton BO BO Se ox 99 E 7GoeEE sco ETTE EEI JE E r GoeEE sDO Figure 3 20 Adding a thick door in the empty space between two rooms Door properties To edit a door s properties select the door Its properties will appear in the property panel as shown in Figure 3 21 X Bounds 3 85m 3 03m Width 81 28 cm Name Doord0 Color Clo 7 Y Bounds 3 73m 3 73m Flowrate 0 9 pers s State Always Open Visible Opacity 100 0 l Z Bounds 0 00 m 0 00 m One way lt disabled gt Figure 3 21 Door property panel Width The width of the do
35. this button and a door no larger than Max Width will be created For thin doors Max Depth will be ignored e Single Click Move the cursor over the desired door location in the 3D or 2D view A preview door will be displayed if the cursor is on a valid edge The door displayed will lie either to the left or right of the hover point relative to the boundary edge depending on whether Max Width is positive or negative Single click to place the door The previewed door will then be added to the model e Click drag Move the cursor over the location of one end point of the door and click drag along the same edge While dragging a preview door will be displayed from the first to the second point When the mouse is released a door is created along the edge between the two specified points Creating a door in this manner ignores all the properties in the tool panel The created door will appear as a thin orange line in the 3D and 2D views as shown in Figure 3 19 24 Pathfinder User Manual E 6 xi S Pathfinder untitled Ele Edt Model Wew Simulation AAA MAL d Se hiu C xX Fino Fear Fiar 0 0m Jennan BO BO a RARAS S88 BO BO Sa RIFA S c imporned Geonetry H Profies B occupsrts gt Floor s Poor 0 0 m E 7GeoekEscO E o GGS200 Figure 3 19 Adding a thin door to connect two touching rooms Thick doors Thick doors are often useful in realistic models especially when CAD geome
36. to the room one way see Doors and ensuring that their directions point out of the room Pathfinder provides a tool to make this easy Instead of individually setting the one way status of all the connecting doors perform the following Select the room s that should not be crossable Right click one of the rooms and from the menu select Make Doors Oneway A dialog will appear as in Figure 3 15 From this dialog choose whether occupants can only Enter or Exit the room If any of the room s doors were already marked as one way another 21 Pathfinder User Manual option will be provided to overwrite the one way status of those doors Press OK in this dialog to make the doors one way Pathfinder will automatically calculate the correct directions for the doors to make the rooms exit only or enter only F Overwrite existing oneway directions Figure 3 15 Make Doors Oneway dialog NOTE If any doors were shared between rooms in the selection those doors will not be affected as their direction would be ambiguous Obstructions Holes In Pathfinder obstructions are modeled as holes in the navigation geometry Holes can be created with an arbitrary polygonal shape or as thick walls Arbitrarily shaped obstructions desks tables etc To model an obstruction e g an office desk or other standing obstacle within a room the subtractive property of rooms is used This means that the room containing the obstruction must alread
37. tool select Copy Mode from the property panel and follow the same steps as above for mirroring an object Alternatively hold CTRL on the keyboard while defining the mirror plane This will create a copy of the object that has been mirrored from the original using the mirror plane Manipulating Objects with Handles Some objects including occupants rooms stairs and doors can be edited through manipulator handles Handles act as points on an object that can either be dragged with the selection tool or edited by the keyboard to edit the attached object Handles only appear on selected objects and show as blue dots as shown in Figure 6 9 Figure 6 9 Manipulator handles Selecting and deselecting a handle To select an object s handle the object itself must first be selected Once it is selected the blue handles should appear Next select the Select Edit tool le Now an individual handle can be selected by clicking it which will make the handle property panel appear as shown in Figure 6 10 To deselect the handle press Escape on the keyboard click anywhere else in the model or select another object 75 Pathfinder User Manual Commit Cancel Figure 6 10 Handle property panel Editing a handle A handle can be edited in one of two ways it can be edited with the keyboard to enter precise values or it can be edited graphically e Editing with the keyboard to edit with the keyboard a handle must first be selecte
38. 116064 H dxf Import Settings Import Options What is the file s length unit Detected Geometry Type 2D Floorplan Geometry types to import 4 Lines 193 detected in Model Bounds Preview Model Width 0 0836406 m Faces 13 detected Model Depth 0 0451196 m 4 Move geometry toz 0 0m Model Height 0 0 m Flatten so geometry lies in one plane 7 Add a blank rectangle to obscure lower floors Color lt Back Next gt Finish 3 Figure 3 40 Dxf unit dialog box Choose Finish to import the file All imported elements will be added to the Imported Geometry node in the Navigation View The grouping structure will include the model level the layer level and all entities distributed within the layer If both lines and faces were included in import and an entity contained both lines and faces in the CAD file the entity is split into two in Pathfinder one with the lines and one with the faces NOTE In versions prior to Pathfinder 2012 1 DXF import allowed a background image to be created that could be passed through to the 3D results viewer While this option is no longer available both imported line and face data is now sent directly to the 3D results viewer instead eliminating the need for a background image 40 Pathfinder User Manual Importing Revit Files While Pathfinder cannot directly import Autodesk Revit files RVT there are two ways to export the data from Revit into a DWG that Pathf
39. 2 Right click the views and press New Camera Tour This will create a new tour with tour views initialized to the selected views The existing views will remain in the model and are independent of the tour views 68 Pathfinder User Manual Preview a Camera Tour A camera tour can be previewed in the pre processor to show all the transitions and the path the camera will take To preview a tour perform the following 1 Select a camera tour either in the 3D 2D view or the navigation view 2 Press the Preview button in the property panel Alternatively double click one of the camera tours in the navigation view The 3D View will show the tour preview playback panel as in Figure 5 4 006069 Figure 5 4 Tour preview playback panel This panel allows the preview to be played paused skipped backward rewound fast forwarded or skipped ahead similar to playback in the 3D Results To end the preview either press the Stop Preview button in the property panel for the camera tour or perform another action The view will return to normal Editing a Camera Tour Camera tours can be edited in several ways e The order of the tour views can be rearranged by dragging dropping the views in the navigation view The order that they appear in the navigation view is the order in which the views will be displayed in the tour e A view can be moved to another tour by dragging it to the desired tour in the navigation view e Use the manipulate to
40. 2114 064 arti center r ho a Ble gerts Scene ebug FOSResuks Wew Help oe a Eo Kle T rby Saprsonin 0 Set wellagtt im O S Exited 0 1981 060000909 Influence radius of 2m e Minimum Value Sets the minimum value that is used to color the contour e Maximum Value Sets the maximum value that is used to color the contour e Colorbar Shading Sets the color scheme that is used to color the contours NOTE For Level of Service contours this controls the floor type which is one of Queuing Stairway or Walkway e Number of Colors Sets the number of colors used to shade the contours This must range from 2to 256 e Feather Amount Fades the lowest x of contour values to transparent so that the underlying geometry or navigation mesh may be seen e Invert Colors Reverses the colors used to shade the contour 108 Pathfinder User Manual NOTE Changing one of the visualization properties will NOT invalidate contour optimization files Activating Deactivating Contours One contour may be activated shown at a time To activate a contour either double click it in the navigation view or right click it and select Show from the context menu The first time this is performed a dialog will appear asking whether to optimize the contour Choosing Yes will cause a progress bar to appear while the contour is optimized and stored in an optimization file See Optimizing Contours below for more information ab
41. 8 can cause extremely slow evacuation times Using values above 3 8 pers m can cause the simulation to become stuck due to the density dependent velocity calculation e Door Flow Rate gt Boundary Layer This value is subtracted from both sides of a door to calculate the effective door width controlling the flow rate equation For example with a Door Boundary Layer setting of 150 mm a 1 0 m door would be reduced to a 0 7 m opening giving an Fs max Of 1 32 pers s m 0 7 m 0 924 pers s e Door Flow Rate gt Flow Rates at High Density controls how specific flow for doors is calculated Specific flow is a measure of occupants per unit of time per unit of effective width For each door the specific flow is multiplied by the effective door width to calculate the door flowrate in occupants per unit of time 85 Pathfinder User Manual o Use a Calculated Specific Flow specific flow is calculated as a function of room density for a room adjacent to the door In cases of counterflow the room with the higher density controls the combined specific flow of the door o Always Use Max Specific Flow Allows the door to flow at the optimum density e Minimum Speed Fraction can be used to set a lower limit on occupant speed Setting this value too low can cause evacuation times to increase significantly in cases of high initial loading of rooms or if the Max Room Density is set very high Steering Mode Parameters The Steering mode is more dependent
42. A A Eai 89 SUMMAN RODOM eis a a a a anes cha a vant a aucat eons 89 DOOE HISTO cae das 90 Door Flowrate and Specific FOW sann E E S 90 BOOLU dE eie a a 91 ROOM AIS TOV menaa a a a a TE 91 OCECUPAMESUNM A T a a ds 92 Occupant PISTO Y aec E E aia 92 A O 93 Navigate throuian la Model essa a 93 vi Displaying geometry INPUT ooccccccnccnncnnccnnnnnaconnnnanonnnnanonnnoncnnnonaronnonanonnonnnonnnnnnronnonaronnenanoness 94 Displaying OCCU ant ss 94 Selecting OCCUPANTS ecassavessecasctodsvaccosdavacossdewacavedecsasvadeveasaacicasssadeatestadessaced aeaseedectansedemaroeens 95 Viewing multi floor problems oocccccoocccncnnnccnnonaconnonanonnnonacononnnnonnonanonnonnnonnnonaronnonanonnnnanoss 95 Animation Play Da Criada 96 ROMes INE Re SUIS a Us 97 VIEWING Occupant PALAS ao 97 Controllihe draWwine detalle ni cs 97 SNOWINS S AVISE o 98 SNOWING Camera TOUS a a 98 Create MOVOS di aci 98 SIMOWIMG FDS Resulta ia a o ben 100 Occupant Contour OAT Maps daa 103 10 Rererence Sinai 1 O shea E E E cae ass O E eau ean E A osiowsaeeduueseneuanetesees 2 vil Figures Figure 1 1 An example of the graphical user interface Model of the Theater de Vest created by Van A e e e UL o 1 Figure 1 2 An example of the 3D Results view showing occupants gathering at a refuge area before proceeding to elevators Transparency has been used to help view the OccupantS oocccccnccccnncnconacinonanaso 2 Figure 1 3 An example time history graph is
43. Contours can be optimized manually by right clicking the contours to optimize in the navigation view and selecting Optimize from the context menu e OnActivation Contours can be optimized when they are activated shown By default when a contour is activated and the contour has any unoptimized frames Pathfinder will prompt the user to optimize The decision can be remembered or this behavior can be manually changed by going to the File Menu and choosing Preferences which will show the Preferences dialog Under the Occupant Contours section choose an option for Optimize on activation e On Playback If a contour has not been optimized using one of the two previous options contours may instead be optimized dynamically during playback and while seeking To enable this option open the preferences dialog as described previously and check the box next to If the process of optimizing a contour is cancelled or skipped the partial results are still retained in the optimization file and used to display the contour In addition these partial results are remembered the next time the contour is requested to be optimized unless some other action invalidates the file 109 Pathfinder User Manual Enable dynamic optimization This will cause the contour frames to be optimized as requested either during playback or during seeking of the 3D results Once a frame of contour data has been optimized and saved to disk it will be retrieved from
44. D DXF data As in 3D extraction the Extract floors tool E is used In addition the user must click a point in the model with the tool and one room will be automatically extracted The main difference from 3D extraction is that the clicked point must not lie on any 3D imported faces marked for floor extraction instead it must be in empty space or on the background rectangle imported with a 2d floorplan The clicked point should also be surrounded by imported 2D lines These lines will form the boundary of the resulting room For this reason any lines that do not contribute to the room s boundary such as notations symbols etc should be deleted hidden or excluded from floor extraction prior to clicking the extraction point To manually exclude imported geometry from floor extraction select the geometry and from the property panel deselect Include in room extraction When determining which imported geometry to extract rooms from the 2d room extraction tool will automatically exclude hidden objects and those manually excluded Once the desired point is clicked the surrounding 2D lines looking at the model from the Top View will be projected along the Z axis onto the active floor s working Z plane These projected lines will then be used to define the room around the clicked point If the surrounding lines do not form a closed boundary as shown in Figure 3 44 a the resulting room will spill outside of the lines and form a room around the b
45. D Model Figure 4 2 An example of the 3D model dialog The Characteristics tab provides the following parameters e Priority Level the priority of the occupant Higher values indicate higher priority This allows occupants of lower priority to move out of the way of those of higher priority This would be useful when simulating first responders that must be able to move easily through a crowd of occupants Priority values are completely relative For instance if three occupants meet of priorities 4 6 and 12 they will behave the same as if their priorities were O 1 and 2 respectively e Speed specifies the maximum speed an occupant may travel in an open room with speed modifier set to 1 0 e Shoulder Width the diameter of the cylinder representing the occupant This is used for collision testing and path planning during the simulation This value will also affect how many occupants can be added to a room without overlapping The Movement tab provides parameters related to how occupants use their surroundings e Use Stairs whether the occupant can use stairs to evacuate This may be useful to model occupants with physical impairments e Ignore Oneway Door Restrictions whether the occupant will ignore the direction specified for one way doors If this is unchecked the occupant will only travel in the direction indicated for the door If this is checked the occupant may go either way through any door e Walk on Es
46. Gael ee cles 73 Figure 6 6 Creating an array of objects using the rotate tool ccooooccnnonnccnncnnnonnnonaconnnnnonononanonnnonanos 74 Figure 6 7 Property panel tor the mirror LOOM nai A A ss 74 FISKE 6 8 MiITonne AN OO EC rn 75 Figdre6 9 Meanipulator handles sanas din 75 Fieure 6 10 Handle Property PANel iia A N 76 HU reo Bl heg B 1G Na a e oi ea din o 76 Figure6 12 Stain ramp handle tiara ds 77 FIeures6 13 Agent nindes hee raters tocar sascha estes ade sees caceavanen a 77 Feure 6 142 Waypoint nando eos ease ee 78 Fieure 7 1 CONNECTIVITY examples A eee ee 79 Figure 7 2 Select Connected Components CialOG ccsecccssscccccssecccceseccceesccecsesececsuseceeseuecceseusecessuneees 80 Figure 7 3 Selecting an entire graph of connected COMPONENS cscccccssseccceesececeeseceeeeeeccessusecessuneces 81 Figure 8 1 The Time tab of the Simulation Parameters dialoOg oooccnconocnnncnnncnnnonaconnnnnonnnonanonononanos 83 Figure 8 2 The Output tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog ooccccooocnnnonnnnnnnnnnonnnonaronnonanonnnonaoos 83 Figure 8 3 The Paths tab of the Simulation Parameters dialoOg ccooocccnconocnnnonanonnnnnnonnnonaronnnnanonnnonoso 84 Figure 8 4 SFPE Behavior tab of the Simulation Parameters dialoOg ccooocccncnnccnnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnananonnnnnaoos 85 Figure 8 5 The Steering Behavior tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog ooocccconncnnncnnn
47. MS creation DIN A AA A AA td ide 61 Figure 4 14 Goto Elevators creation luna ds 61 Figure 4 15 Walt creation DANG lisa idad dra daa 62 Figure 4 16 Adding occupants individually ooocccconoccnnonaccnnnnnocnnnnnaconnnnnconnonononnnnononnnonaronnonaninnnnnnoss 62 Figure 4 17 Add Rectangular Group of Occupants Property Panel ccccoocccncnnccnnnnnncnnnnnannnnonanonononanos 63 Figure 4 18 Editing the distribution of DFOTIOS ria as 63 Figure 4 19 Distributing occupants in a rectangular region ccccooccnnccnocnnnnnanonnnnnnonnnnnconnonannnnonanonononanos 63 Figure 4 20 Distributing occupants through entire FOOMS ccccooccnncnnccnncnnaconnnnanonnnnanonnnonarononnnonononanonnnnnnoss 64 Figure4 21 Edit Group Distrip tions dialog ii A oa 65 Figure 5 1 Creatine a VIEW A A A awe eed E 66 Figure 5 2 Camera Tour property panel iii A APs 68 Figure 5 3 Camera Tour View property panel cccccccsssccccessccccesececceseccceeeseceseeecessuaeceesenceessusecesseneces 68 Fietirer5 4 Tour preview playback panela 69 Figure 6 1 Property panel for the translate tO iscicccssesidcstesiiecssssdeduvbaccdassivabdivetanstsasabededvaloestavanesvivaetevads 71 Figure 6 2 Graphically moving an OD acti rol 72 Figure 6 3 Creating an array of objects by using the translate tool oooccccconcnnncnnacnnnonaronnonanonononanos 72 Figure 6 4 Property panel Tor the rotatetool nasa n os 73 Figure 6 5 Rotating an ODE cti
48. Pathfinder T THUNDERHEAD 403 Poyntz Avenue Suite B Manhattan KS 66502 USA 1 785 770 8511 www thunderheadeng com User Manual Pathfinder 2015 Disclaimer Thunderhead Engineering makes no warranty expressed or implied to users of Pathfinder and accepts no responsibility for its use Users of Pathfinder assume sole responsibility under Federal law for determining the appropriateness of its use in any particular application for any conclusions drawn from the results of its use and for any actions taken or not taken as a result of analyses performed using these tools Users are warned that Pathfinder is intended for use only by those competent in the field of egress modeling Pathfinder is intended only to supplement the informed judgment of the qualified user The software package is a computer model that may or may not have predictive capability when applied to a specific set of factual circumstances Lack of accurate predictions by the model could lead to erroneous conclusions All results should be evaluated by an informed user Acknowledgements This work was originally made possible by a Small Business Innovative Research SBIR grant 2005 2007 by the United States National Science Foundation We would like to thank Rolf Jensen and Associates for their assistance with testing and other suggestions that helped guide the development of the simulator We would also like to thank the users whose feedback helps us improve t
49. Selecting this option makes the material a solid color e Texture Image Selecting this option makes the material show a texture image e Width and Height Define the dimensions of the texture image in the model For instance if the image depicts a 4x4 array of bricks with no motor between and each brick is 8x3 the Width would be 32 and the height would be 12 e Opacity Defines the opacity of the material Reorganizing and Making Fast Edits Sometimes the imported data may not be organized in a convenient manner For instance it might be desirable to change some feature of all the windows but the windows in the model may not be in the same group making it difficult to select all of them at once In cases such as these the similar objects may have the same color If so right click one of the objects and choose Select All by Color Alternatively choose Select All by Material This will find all objects with the same color or material and select them making it easy to change some shared property or move them into another group for easy selection later 49 Pathfinder User Manual 4 Creating Occupants In Pathfinder occupants are defined in two parts profiles and behaviors The profile defines fixed characteristics of the occupants such as maximum speed radius avatar and color The behavior defines a sequence of actions the occupant will take throughout the simulation such as moving to a refuge area waiting and then exi
50. aees 18 PINE TOON e 19 Separating and merging LOOMIS sssssssesressrrrsrrresrersrressreesrersrerosrersrerssrresrersreesrteesrersereesrers 19 ROOM POD eran a ES 20 Preventing FOOM ChOSSING ira A 21 Obs racuon Hole Sse ee ee enel 22 Arbitrarily shaped obstructions desks tables etc oocccconnnncncnnnncnnnnncnnnonacinononacinonanoso 22 e E oa 23 A A 24 ls o qq etn nena a ais once open cecasann oes asin asunaesansueneneavunaseees 24 WUC COC A o aca o A A 25 OOF PODES tintadas 26 Ch EPA EA O 27 Stalis DETWee reo session 27 Stairs extending from ONE edge cccceseccccessccccsesececcesececcescceeeesccecsuecessugececseusecesausesesseneces 28 Stall PhO Peles PR o OE EE sien 30 o O oteter ec dveaedeoe teaches 31 ESC i Oise pee se tse areata esa da es yo nar eet estas ares close N 31 MOVINEWAlKWAVS aria calida dad 31 A A setae Bnet ates 32 Creatine COW AL ON aa losa 32 Elevator representa OM ias 34 EleVvator Properties ia de O ias 35 Nominale cacas 36 Connectine Disconnectihs TODOS ivi ri ii lia 36 o A E ET 37 PP O O AI decease AT EAT 37 lata OA A O a a 38 IMPONE IMa tesina iii coil 38 nr tacdesteonssanadetecetcoesgeaoasedestonnees Meas icocesa an aaa Na 39 MDOT REVI E FICS OPERA PEPE o A N NR 41 Importing PyroSim and FDS files ccccsssccsosssscncosssecccnsvectenssscneossseneousvestensssenensseneoussenee 42 WORKING With IMmported Data sinss dade a a ashe onaagenbasdassteensecduadt iesetes 42 e bate
51. aking the distance Checking Connectivity Sometimes it is desirable to check how various components are connected in the model to debug simulation errors or to ensure model validity For instance a model might contain two rooms connected by a hallway as shown in Figure 7 1 B LJ Pathfinder 2011 Connectivity pth CA cc S O o a a File Edit Model View Simulation Results Help Beda osyx E 0 0 ee EA AAN s A E Floor Creation Sorting New Egress Components v Auto sort egress components Group Floor 0 0m Y Automatically create floors Floor height 3 0 m Qf Goto Any Exit E a Occupants p ia Elevators Floors H Floor 0 0 m IDHAA ENA 3 706 5 129 1 705 m Figure 7 1 Connectivity example If a user attempts to simulate this model the following error appears 79 Pathfinder User Manual ERROR 00001 cannot reach any exits Click OK to stop simulation and highlight invalid objects This type of error usually indicates that the model is not properly connected It is telling us that the occupant named 00001 cannot reach any of their assigned exits This means that either a connecting door is missing along their route to the exit or some other problem has occurred with the geometry We need to determine why the occupant cannot reach the exit on the right side of the model To do so we right click the room containing the o
52. al e Contour The contour that will be filtered any changes to this contour will also affect the filtered contour e Filter The filter to apply to the contour Importing Contours Contours can also be imported from other results This will import the list of available contours as well as their generation and visualization properties but it will not import the contour data This can be useful for users who want to view the same set of contours across several result sets To import contours under the File menu select Import Occupant Contours In the file chooser dialog choose the pfrmeta file that corresponds to the desired results set and choose Open This will add the contours in the specified result set into the current result set Duplicating Contours Contours can also be duplicated This is useful for creating several versions of a particular quantity such as showing different averaging intervals or creating several snapshots of a contour at different times To duplicate a contour in the navigation view right click the contour and select Duplicate This will create and add a duplicate of the selected contour Several contours may be duplicated at once by selecting several in the tree before duplicating NOTE If the selection contains both a filter and its base contour the duplicate filter will be filtering the base contour s duplicate and not the original Global Contour Properties There are several global properties that c
53. and graphics card performance can be found at http www cpubenchmark net and http www videocardbenchmark net Contact Us Thunderhead Engineering 403 Poyntz Avenue Suite B Manhattan KS 66502 6081 USA Sales Information sales thunderheadeng com Product Support support thunderheadeng com Phone and Fax 1 785 770 8511 Pathfinder User Manual 2 Pathfinder Basics Pathfinder provides three main views for working on evacuation models the 2D View 3D View and Navigation View These views represent your current model If an object is added removed or selected in one view the other views will simultaneously reflect the change Each view is briefly described below e Navigation View This view lists all objects in the model in a hierarchical format It can be used to quickly locate and modify objects by name e 3D View This view shows a 3D representation of the current model The model can be explored and modified using various tools e 2D View This view is very similar to the 3D View but it provides an additional snapping grid and an orthographic view of the model Navigation View The Navigation View helps you quickly find objects and data that are not always easily accessible from the 3D and 2D views Floor ue Floor 0 0 m ka JEE The Navigation View is arranged in six groups EB Profiles EY Default 349 Behaviors bef Goto Any Exit 5 Occupants fia Elevators 1 The Imported geometry group
54. ane and holding ALT while dragging will make the camera move up and down along the Z axis This tool has a higher learning curve but is the most flexible viewing tool because it allows the camera to be placed anywhere in the model The other navigation tools include a pan drag tool which moves the camera left and right and up and down a zoom tool which zooms in and out of the model while click dragging and a zoom box tool which allows a box to be drawn that specifies the zoom extents Pathfinder can also be navigated while using the Selection manipulation tool t To Orbit the camera while in perspective view use a right click and drag combination Similarly use a middle click and drag to Pan in perspective view Navigating the 2D view Navigation in the 2D view is simpler than in the 3D view The selection tool not only allows objects to be selected if single clicked but it allows the view to be panned by middle or right clicking and dragging and the view to be zoomed by using the scroll wheel The drag and zoom tools are also separated into separate tools for convenience Resetting the view At any time the camera can be reset by pressing CTRL R on the keyboard or selecting Reset All tool E This will cause the entire model to be visible in the current view For all navigation tools but the Roam tool reset will make the camera look down the negative Z axis at the model For the roam tool however reset will make the camera look along t
55. anually created in the user interface by going to the File menu and selecting Save Simulator Input When running a simulation this way it may also be desirable to manually create the geometry file for visualization To do this from the File menu choose Save Imported Geometry File NOTE Running a simulation through the command line will not provide a management dialog through which the simulation can be paused and resumed Stopping and Resuming a Simulation When running a simulation there is the option to pause and resume but this requires Pathfinder to be running the entire time Sometimes the need arises to be able to stop a simulation and resume later between Pathfinder sessions such as if the computer needs to be restarted after installing a system update 87 Pathfinder User Manual To stop a simulation press Cancel during a simulation in the simulation dialog Pathfinder will ask the user if a snapshot should be made Before selecting Yes make note of the simulation time After choosing Yes a snapshot file is written into the same directory as the result with a filename similar to the following untitled_XXXXX XXX snapshot where the X s are replaced with the simulation time at which the simulation was stopped The snapshot file can later be resumed To resume it go to the Simulation menu and select Resume Simulation Then select the snapshot file The simulation will resume from the time it was stopped Note that the P
56. ate e Graphically This is performed most easily in one of the 2D views The rotate axis is automatically set to a vector normal to the camera Rotating requires three mouse clicks The first specifies the base of rotation The second defines a reference vector extending from the rotation base The third defines a second vector extending from the rotation base The rotation angle is the angle between these two vectors The steps for rotating graphically are shown in Figure 6 5 x 0 0m hs Xx 0 0 Rotse Bese Xx 0 0m Rotate Asis 00 a Noma Rotate Base 0 Rotate dos a Rotate Basa Y 0 0m Rotate Axe Y 0 0 Ange 0 0 Rotate Base Y 0 0m Rotate Axis Y 0 0 Ange 129 8978 Copy Mode Copy Mode Cancel Rotate Base Z 4 99902 m Rotate As 7 1 0 Rotate BaseT 4 99902m Rotate Aris 2 1 0 OF Boekka See DIFEORESEIO SA OB Pee CKE2Boon 3204 Figure 6 5 Rotating an object 73 Pathfinder User Manual Objects can also be copied using the rotate tool To do so select the rotate tool select Copy Mode from the property panel and follow the same steps as above for rotating an object Alternatively hold CTRL on the keyboard while defining the rotate properties This will create a copy of the object that has been rotated from the original using the rotate parameters Similarly an array of objects can be made by specifying a value greater than 1 for the Copies field in the property panel The array is created by rotating each previous
57. athfinder occupants cannot pass between two rooms unless they are joined by a door Also the simulator requires that each occupant must have a path to at least one exit door Doors provide useful flow measurements in simulation results Also in the SFPE mode doors act as the primary flow control mechanism You can add doors using the Add a New Door tool When adding doors different parameters provide hints to Pathfinder for finding a valid door as shown in Figure 3 18 The Max Width parameter is used as a target width for the door If the full width isn t available Pathfinder will display a shorter door as you hover with the mouse The Max Depth parameter represents the depth of the door cavity and is used to determine how far apart two rooms can be and still be joined by a door Doors can be added between rooms that are separated by up to this distance x 4 70982 cm Max Width 81 28 cm Y 3 11065 cm Max Depth 25 4 cm Z 501 811 cm Figure 3 18 Door tool property panel Thin doors Thin doors can be used to connect two rooms that touch one another as shown in Figure 3 19 A door is needed in this example to allow occupants to travel from one room to the other To create a door in this manner first select the door tool B and then use one of the following three methods e Manual Entry Enter the coordinates of the door in the property panel If the coordinates specify a valid door location the Create Door button will enable Click
58. athfinder file from which the simulation originated should be open to resume a simulation Stuck Occupants Sometimes occupants become stuck preventing a proper simulation run There can be many causes of this problem and we do everything we can to prevent it but it does happen If occupants are becoming stuck in tight spaces consider the following steps to resolve the problem 1 Alter the navigation mesh in the area where occupants are becoming stuck This can be especially useful if the area was originally extracted from imported geometry Sometimes simply re drawing the area using the drawing tools can fix the issue Slightly increase the occupants Comfort Distance in their profile 3 Slightly reduce the occupants Reduction Factor in their profile Switch to the SFPE simulation mode This mode uses the simplest set of assumptions and is not as susceptible to the geometric and movement irregularities that can cause occupants to become stuck In addition please contact Thunderhead Engineering for support at mailto support thunderheadeng com subject Stuck Pathfinder Model 88 Pathfinder User Manual 9 Results Summary Report The summary report file contains information about the simulation geometry simulation performance and usage information for each room stairway and door Figure 9 1 shows a portion of an example summary report file SUMMARY SUMMARY SUMMARY SUMMARY SUMMARY MultiFl
59. ation ome a E Floor Creation 4 Auto sort e En 7 Automatica Floor heigh Set as active floor Fi Resort existing egress components into new floor p Floor 6 0 m i ARO I I E ON a Elevators l Floors Figure 3 3 Adding a new floor Changing the active floor To change the active floor click the floor drop down box as shown in Figure 3 3 and select the desired floor This will make that floor active and all other floors non active Whenever the active floor is changed the following additional changes take place in the model e The floor all objects in the floor group and all occupants on the floor are set visible e All other floors sub objects of other floors and occupants on those floors are set hidden e The working plane of the room and wall subtraction tools is set to the working plane of the floor e Aclipping filter is applied to imported geometry so that only geometry within the Z clipping planes of the active floor is visible 15 Pathfinder User Manual Showing all floors To show all floors click the floor drop down box as shown in Figure 3 3 and click lt Show All gt This will additionally show all occupants on the floors and all sub objects of the floors groups and it will set the import filter to the union of all the floors filters Floor Properties To edit a floor s properties first select the desired floor The property panel as shown in Figure 3 4 will appear
60. based on the incline of the stairway Each stairway implicitly defines two doors These doors function just like any other door in the simulator but are controlled via the stairway editor in the user interface to ensure that no geometric errors result from a mismatch between stairways and the connecting doors Elevators are called to a floor when occupants arrive at the elevator door The elevator model includes capacity pick up and discharge floors and the ability to group elevators in banks Es reine 2012164 eater on ill ht Liisa File Edit Model View Simulation Results Help c H Y x 0 Floor Creation Sorting New Egress Components 405 i i d gt Auto sort egress components Group 47 Floor 60 0 m amp Imported Geometry V Automatically create floors files Floor height 4 0 m 5 8 Occupants F Elevators Bank 1 iw Bank 2 E a Floors Ped F 00 0 0 Y e Ra pl 4 WA IHAA EDAT ae Figure 1 4 The triangulated navigation mesh used to represent one floor in the model Each occupant is defined by position a profile that specifies size speed etc and a behavior that defines goals for the occupant The behavior allows scripting so that for example an occupant may wait at a location for a specified time and then proceed to an elevator The occupant is represented as an upright Pathfinder User Manual cylinder on the movement mesh and movement uses an agent base
61. bove for moving an object Alternatively hold CTRL on the keyboard while defining the offset This will create a copy of the object that has been offset by the move distance Similarly an array of objects can be made by specifying a value greater than 1 for the Copies field in the property panel The array is created by offsetting each previous copy by the move distance If when copying rooms the resulting copies overlap one another the most recent copies take precedence over earlier ones meaning that earlier ones will have area subtracted from them An array is shown in Figure 6 3 Mowe 2 60144 m Cagy Move Mowe v if i G 2 i Carcel Med 0 0m DIEERKONDO 304 Dick E B00 ser Figure 6 3 Creating an array of objects by using the translate tool Rotating To rotate one or more objects select the objects and click the rotate tool E from the 2D or 3D view The property panel for the rotate tool is shown in Figure 6 4 72 Pathfinder User Manual Rotate Base Xi 4 66295 m Rotate Axis X 0 0 Normal Mode Rotate Rotate Base Y 2 9598 m Rotate Axis Y 0 0 Angle 0 02 Copy Mode Copies 1 SS Cancel Rotate Base Z 0 0 m Rotate Axis 2 1 Figure 6 4 Property panel for the rotate tool The object can be rotated either manually or graphically e Manually Select Normal Mode and enter the base of rotation the axis about which to rotate using the right hand rule and the angle to rotate Then click Rot
62. buted throughout this region using parameters in the property panel as shown in Figure 4 17 e Random Uniform Placement Random placement places occupants randomly within the designated area such that no overlapping of occupants occurs If the number of desired occupants is too great to accomplish this a prompt will ask whether or not to continue with overlapping occupants Uniform placement places occupants in an orderly hex pattern allowing greater occupant densities before overlap occurs Again a prompt will ask whether to continue with overlap if the density is too great e Count Density This option specifies whether to place a set number of occupants or place enough occupants to achieve a certain density Several template densities are provided and Custom can be selected from the densities drop down menu to enter a new value 62 Pathfinder User Manual e Profile This option allows a distribution of profiles to be set for the occupants such as specifying that 25 of the added occupants should be females lt 30 years old 30 children etc The label shows the currently set distribution and if there is more than one profile defined in the model the value can be clicked to edit the distribution This will open a dialog as shown in Figure 4 18 e Behavior Like the Profile option this option allows the distribution of behaviors to be set Placement Uniform Random Profile Females 30 yr Behavior Goto Any Exit Count
63. calators whether the occupant will walk on escalators and moving walkways If this is checked the escalator s speed constant will be added to the occupant s desired speed on the stair to determine the occupant s final speed If unchecked the occupant will stand still and travel on the stair at the stair s speed constant 51 Pathfinder User Manual The Door Choice tab provides parameters related to how occupants choose doors to exit from in each room For more information about door choice see the Pathfinder Technical Reference Pathfinder Resources e Current Room Travel Time a cost factor that affects the cost of travelling to a door in the occupant s current room ignoring all other occupants Higher values increase the door s cost in this category e Current Room Queue Time a cost factor that affects the cost of waiting in a queue at a door in the occupant s current room Higher values increase the door s cost in this category e Global Travel Time a cost factor that affects the cost of travelling from a door to an exit or the occupant s next goal ignoring all other occupants Higher values increase the door s cost in this category e Current Door Preference a value used to make occupants stick to their currently chosen doors preventing excessive door switching A value of 100 will cause occupants to never switch doors once an initial door is chosen and a value of 0 will allow occupants to freely change their se
64. ccupant and click Select Connected Components from the right click menu The following dialog is shown Figure 7 2 Select Connected Components dialog We want to trace model connectivity as far as possible to determine where we might be missing a door or other connection so from the drop down box in the Select Connected Components dialog we choose Entire graph and click OK Pathfinder will highlight the entire graph of components touching the initial selection as shown in Figure 7 3 80 Pathfinder User Manual Ly Pathfinder 2011 Connectivity pth E CA File Edit Model View Simulation Results Help c H l g Y x 0 emet roM a MAME a A E Floor am Floor 0 0 m 4 om Name X Bounds 4 00 m 6 00 m Area 23 0 m Dia Z Visible Y Bounds 0 00 m 3 50 m Pers 1 5 Profiles W Color m Z Bounds 0 00 m 0 00 m Density 0434783 pers m B e Behaviors Qf Goto Any Exit E a Occupants l Elevators Floors H Floor 0 0 m O 7DERRRESEDO 204 5 636 4 88 1 705 m Figure 7 3 Selecting an entire graph of connected components From the selection we can see that the hallway does not connect to the far right room Upon further inspection we can see that we do not have a door between the hallway and the room We can add a door to fix the problem From the Select Connected Components dialog we could have also chosen to select only immediately adjacent co
65. ces dialog The options are as follows e interpolate Data Interpolates data between frames over time This allows the animation of the slices to look smooth even when FDS outputs the slice data at large time intervals Uncheck this to view data exactly as generated by FDS and make slice animation more closely match that in Smokeview e Auto Range Automatically sets the minimum and maximum values based on the maximum range of the loaded slice files NOTE These automatic values are actually the middle 98 of values in the results rather than the absolute minimum and maximum e Minimum Value If Auto Range is unchecked this sets the minimum display value e Maximum Value If Auto Range is unchecked this sets the maximum display value e Opacity Sets the opacity of the displayed slices Values approaching 100 make the slices look more solid where values closer to 0 make the slices look more transparent e Colorbar Shading Specifies the color palette to display e Number of Colors Species how many colors are available in the palette This must be between 2 and 256 e Invert Colors Reverses the color scale 102 Pathfinder User Manual Occupant Contours Heat Maps Pathfinder supports the visualization of dynamic occupant data on the floor areas of the model as shown in Figure 9 9 Referred to as occupant contours or heat maps this animated data can give a qualitative visualization of the model s performance fr Pathfind
66. cit action will always happen last Additional intermediate actions may also be added that can make the occupant wait or travel to a non exit destination such as a room or point By default there is one behavior in the model called Goto Any Exit This behavior simply makes the occupant move from their starting position to any exit present in the model by the fastest route As with profiles any number of occupants can refer to a single behavior Any changes to the behavior will be reflected in referring occupants Creating a new Behavior To create a new behavior right click the Behaviors node from the Navigation View and from the right click menu click Add a Behavior which will open the New Behavior dialog shown in Figure 4 7 In the New Behavior dialog enter a behavior name and optionally specify an existing behavior to base the new behavior on Using this option will copy all the actions from the existing behavior Pee Behavior Mame Behavior Based On Goto Any Exit Cancel Figure 4 7 New Behavior dialog With the new behavior selected the behavior property panel will appear as shown in Figure 4 8 Initial Delay 0 0s Behavior Behavior P Add Goto Waypoint Exits any Figure 4 8 Behavior Property Panel 58 Pathfinder User Manual e Initial Delay This specifies an initial delay that makes the occupant wait at their starting position before moving to the next action If this li
67. d Next enter the desired location in the X Y and Z fields in the property panel and select the Commit button The handle will attempt to modify the underlying object using the handle s internal constraints that are described in the appropriate section of this guide for the respective handle s object e Editing graphically a handle does not have to be selected before editing graphically To edit graphically make sure the Select Edit tool is selected and press the left mouse button over the desired handle and drag the handle to the desired location Release the left mouse button and the object will be edited A real time preview of the object being edited will be shown as the mouse is dragged Room handles When rooms are selected a handle can be found at every vertex on the boundary of the room The handles move the underlying vertex to reshape the room The handles can be moved to any location within the plane of the face the vertex is on If the vertex is shared between two faces in non parallel planes the handle can only be moved along the edge to which it is attached Thin door handles When a thin door is selected three handles will be displayed as shown in Figure 6 11 a The handles on the ends of the door allow the door to be moved along the edge to which it is attached The middle handle allows the door to be made thick by moving the handle to the edge of another room as shown in Figure 6 11 b a b Figure 6 11 Door
68. d anbodassae 42 Working with 3D CAD PyroSim and FDS files ooccccooocncnonoccnnnonocononononononaronnnnanonnnonanos 43 WVIORKING WIE 2 DDFS scicciecanscetiabsseas a a a S 44 Einem MISSING DI OCOS A ash ree lite it N 45 Flattenins and Loca HON ti a da 46 Visual ER aracterISs ts arc naa a a a sees 47 Material Sa A ia 47 Reorganizing and Making Fast Edits ES 49 Creatine OCCUPANTS ina di od 50 A A A R E ed 50 Advanced speed Properties sarao daa 53 A A O Re ie atest E AEE E E O A E nee 57 CUSTOMIZING Occupational a 57 A A devotee tats 58 Creating a new Behavior ounsa a Saeeab busi nate aed 58 No AAA a a dateoots staal a ain sia ausatd Sasont tts 59 GOO Way DOI dC HON aida do 60 GOLO ROOMS ACTO Nai aida 60 GOO Elevators ACTION assist aad tee elds 61 VV AEA CHOU nadas 61 Adding CUD AILS a ie oh eect a 62 GIVIGU Al placement ios 62 Group Placement enia A aah sae dined ued nated 62 PlactementIn 00M Ss a 64 RedistributineProtiles a a Benavides 64 VIEWS ANG Camera TOUS aaa 66 Creatine a Vie Weirin E gra 66 RECIO ACW e EA 66 o ease ocustatae sen coanseccasnesandeunesGnacensenseaemesteseet 67 Cameta VOUS ns dde A 67 Cheating Tours rom Ora oa 67 Creating Tours from Existing VieWS ccooocccnconoccnnonononnnnnnonnnonaronnonanonnnnnaconnonaronnonanonnnonaronnnnos 68 Preview a Camera TOUl cscccscccssccseccscccseccseccsectscecseecseeseesaeeseesaussesssaussauseauscesseeseeeseeeass 69 o A O A 69 Changing Views Tou
69. d technique called inverse steering Each occupant calculates movements independently Simulation Modes Pathfinder supports two movement simulation modes In Steering mode occupants use a steering system to move and interact with others This mode tries to emulate human behavior and movement as much as possible SFPE mode uses a set of assumptions and hand calculations as defined in the Engineering Guide to Human Behavior in Fire SFPE 2003 In SFPE mode occupants make no attempt to avoid one another and are allowed to interpenetrate but doors impose a flow limit and velocity is controlled by density You can freely switch between the two modes within the Pathfinder user interface and compare answers More information about both modes is provided in the Pathfinder Technical Reference Pathfinder Resources Limitations and Known Issues Pathfinder does not presently integrate results from a fire model or provide support for complex behaviors e g family grouping Dynamic geometry is only partially supported e g elevators virtual escalators and door opening closing are supported but trains and other moving surfaces are not Elevators are supported in evacuation only circumstances They do not model a general purpose elevator system Simulator Name The name Pathfinder has been used previously to describe a 2D egress simulator created and used internally by Rolf Jensen and Associates While the original Pathfinder inspired some of
70. d view from the Navigation View e Right click a view from either the Navigation View or the 3D 2D View and press Show in 3D View 66 Pathfinder User Manual This will show the 3D View and the perspective camera will be initialized with the state of the saved view Editing a View If the orientation of a view needs to be changed perform the following 1 Position the perspective camera into the new desired position 2 Right click the view and press Update View Alternatively the graphical representation of the camera can be manipulated to move the location of the view as discussed in Manipulating Objects with Handles on page 75 Camera Tours Pathfinder provides the capability to create and view camera tours which can be used in the following scenarios e Create more cinematic views of the results such as showing a dynamic panning view of the model e Simulate security cameras by having the camera pan tilt back and forth on a timed loop e Show several static views of the scene that change periodically Camera tour playback can also be recorded in the offline video feature as discussed in High Quality Movies on page 98 Camera tours show up as green curves in the 3D 2D Views They can be shown hidden individually or as a whole by pressing the Show View Objects button me in the 3D 2D View toolbar Creating Tours from Scratch Camera tours are built by stringing together several views of the scene and smoothly interpolati
71. ded by walls doors which connect rooms on the same level stairs ramps which connect rooms on different levels and elevators which connect multiple levels Rooms can have any polygonal shape and can never overlap on the same level Doors can be either thick if they are occupying a doorway the area between two rooms or thin if they are simply connecting two touching rooms Stairs ramps are always rectangular and implicitly contain a thin door on each end to connect the adjacent rooms Elevators can be any shape and can travel in any direction To organize egress components Pathfinder provides the concept of floors which group together components at different Z locations Floors Floors are the primary method of organization in Pathfinder At their most basic level they are simply groups in which rooms doors stairs ramps and exits can be placed but they also control the drawing plane for most tools and filtering of imported geometry In every Pathfinder model at least one floor must exist and at any given time there is one active floor Whenever any navigation object is drawn it will either be placed in the active floor or a subgroup of the active floor By default when a new model is started there is one floor at Z 0 and additional floors are either created automatically depending on where the geometry is drawn or manually created In addition new navigation components are automatically sorted into the appropriate floor when dra
72. der User Manual 5 Views and Camera Tours Pathfinder provides the capability to save camera positions Views that can be recalled later and to create Camera Tours that allow flythrough animations of a model Views and camera tours can be used in both the pre processor and in the 3D Results Views At any time the state of the perspective camera can be saved including its position orientation and zoom The camera information is stored in an object called a View A view can be recalled later in either the pre processor or 3D Results to view the scene from that perspective Views appear in the 3D Results as points and can be hidden either individually or as a whole To show hide all views click the Show View Objects button in the 3D 2D view toolbar Creating a View To create a view follow these steps 1 Position the perspective camera using one of the navigation tools as discussed in Navigating the 3D view on page 8 2 Create a new view using one of these methods e Onthe Model menu press New View e Right click Views in the Navigation View and choose New View A new view will appear in the Navigation View as shown in Figure 5 1 eo de Imported Geometry 39 Profiles IA Behaviors a Goto Any Exit 8 Occupants A FF gt pg Elevators IT ga Floors Floor 0 0 m Figure 5 1 Creating a View Recalling a View To recall a view in the pre processor perform any of the following e Double click the desire
73. door is created it is added to a floor group matching the current selection in the Floor box Changing the selection in the Floor box will cause the newly selected floor to be shown and all other floors to be hidden Also the Z property for all drawing tools will automatically default to the height of the floor currently selected in the Floor box The visibility of any object or group of objects can always be manually set using the right click context menu This technique is useful if you want to show two floors at the same time e g when creating a stairway 3D and 2D Views The 3D and 2D views as shown in Figure 2 1 are the main views in which drawing is performed in Pathfinder Both views contain tools to draw egress geometry and navigate in a model The main difference between the two views is that the 3D view allows the model to be viewed from any direction whereas the 2D view only allows viewing from one orthographic direction In addition the 3D view contains no snap grid whereas the 2D view does The 3D view is entered by selecting the perspective camera Q and the 2D view is entered by selecting one of the orthographic cameras w a or a At the top of the view is several buttons that show different camera modes display options and navigation modes The panel under this is known as the property panel and is a selection context sensitive panel If a drawing tool is selected it will show properties that can used to help draw If no d
74. e 3 2 1 Anew model is created The floor height is left at the default of 3 m 2 Room00 is drawn at Z 0 m and is auto placed in Floor 0 0 m 3 Room01 is drawn at Z 1 5 m and is auto placed in Floor 0 0 m 4 Stair01 is drawn connecting Room00 to Room01 and is auto placed in Floor 0 0 m 5 Room02 is drawn at Z 1 5 m A new floor Floor 3 0 m is auto created and Room02 is auto placed in it 6 Stair02 is drawn connecting Room02 and Room00 and is auto placed in Floor 3 0 m 7 Room03 is drawn at Z 7 5 m A new floor Floor 6 0 m is auto created and Room02 is auto placed in it aF Floors no Floor 3 0 m cm Room02 Stair02 47 Floor 0 0 m Roomoo Roomot Be Stair di Floor 6 0 m ss Room03 Figure 3 2 Auto floor creation and sorting In this example only rooms and stairs were created The floors were automatically created and the rooms and stairs were automatically sorted into the appropriate ones Using Auto sort with an Existing Model Automatic floors can be created and components sorted into the floors by performing the following 1 2 3 Open the model Clear the selection so that the Floor Creation panel is visible Figure 3 1 Ensure that the desired creation sorting options are enabled and that the correct floor height for the model is set 14 Pathfinder User Manual
75. e Show Materials option is turned off e Opacity The opacity of the selected objects when they have no material or the Show Materials option is turned off Materials Materials define advanced display properties that can be applied to faces contained in the imported geometry They are only shown when the Show Materials 2 option is selected in the 2D View or the 3D View see View Options on page 10 Materials can be shared among faces when a material is edited all faces referencing that material are updated Materials are extracted from import files in different ways depending on the file type 47 Pathfinder User Manual e DWG DWG files have a concept of materials Each material that is referenced by an object in the DWG file will be imported into Pathfinder Currently Pathfinder supports the diffuse color diffuse texture and opacity setting of the material e FDS and PSM Pathfinder materials are constructed from the color and texture settings of the surfaces in these file types NOTE The use of the word material in Pathfinder is different than in PyroSim and FDS In these applications a material defines the physical properties of a substance In Pathfinder a material defines the visual appearance of a face To see the materials that have been imported from the DWG or PSM file on the Model menu select Manage Material Database The Material Dialog will appear as shown in Figure 3 48 Rosewood Natural Low Gloss
76. eates the largest files e Specify time step Allows the contour time step to be specified Values higher than the time step of the 3D Results will decrease the time accuracy of the generated contours but will also decrease the calculation time and disk space requirements for the contour files The specified time step will be rounded to the nearest multiple of the 3D Results time step NOTE Changing one of the preceding properties invalidates all existing optimization files requiring them to be recalculated See Optimizing Contours on page 109 for more information EJ PachFinster 2014 066 arty center LA gt tb Pie Agents Scene Debug POS Besuks Yew Help Su eS Bon ox Aa Toor Saparsten n 0 Set Well mete in 000009 tu e Exited Time 838 y 6 Triangle area 25m default 0 1981 o E Pachtiniter 2144 x66 ats center ia 3 Scene Deb fos Ele Agers Sc Debug POS Resuks Wew Help Peed WO gt KK FA hrst o Set welrngteiny Cse e 060000809 Triangle area 05m Figure 9 13 Effect of contour mesh resolution 106 Exited me Speed ms Pathfinder User Manual Individual Contour Properties Each contour also contains a set of properties that control the generation of the contour as well as ts visualization To set the properties of a contour right click the contour in the navigation view and select Properties This will show the properties dialog for that c
77. er 2015 x64 The Art Center cameras C oas File Agents Scene Debug Analysis View Help Qu ana Eala 5 amp X amp Floor Separation m 0 Wall Height m 0 w EM Cameras y F a Pm A Exited 14 3004Y Density ron f i i A Entrance gt Entrancel i 7 occs m 2 MH Entrance gt Entrance2 y F d BH Concert Hall gt Stage fot 3 BN Concert Hall gt Concer f MN Concert Hall gt Conce f j Theater gt Theater ins f 2 75 Theater gt Theater ow j F i AN Outdoor r a 14 2 51 5 Occupant Contours f A i 3 ee Density Average Fi 2 27 A Level of Service Queuing d A Level of Service Stairway A Level of Service Walkway off Normalized Speed J Normalized Speed Averac a Speed ff Speed Average fd Time to Exit oof Usage Accumulated of Usage Instantaneous O O O O Reverse e O Time 1 21 9 01 Framerate 2343 4 fps Figure 9 9 Occupant Contours Pathfinder supports the visualization of several types of occupant contours including the following e Density Shows how densely packed occupants are in occupants m e Level of Service Shows Level of Service Fruin 1987 defined by surface type including stairways walkways and queuing areas e Speed Shows occupant speed e Normalized Speed Shows occupant speed normalized against each occupant s maximum speed e Time to Exit Shows the amount of time it will take an occupant to
78. ery other floor contains geometry from its location to the next floor s location Edit Floors Floor Locations m 0 76 Figure 9 4 Floor location dialog for 3D results Once the floors are defined wall clipping can be applied to shorten the walls yet maintain a sense of obstruction placement as shown in Figure 9 5 b As shown in this figure more of the model can be seen than in Figure 9 5 a The wall height can be set in the toolbar above the 3D view If this value is set above O the geometry on every floor will be clipped above the floor s Z location plus the wall height If the value is set to O the full wall height is used To stack floors vertically along the Z axis open the Scene menu and select Layout Floors Vertically When viewed in this manner floors will appear naturally such that each floor is stacked on top of the one below it The floors can then be separated by empty space to more easily view inside the model as shown in Figure 9 5 c This Floor Separation can be set in the toolbar above the 3D view 95 Pathfinder User Manual To layout floors in the XY plane open the Scene menu and select Layout Floors Horizontally The floors will be laid out in a square grid and in one plane They will appear in order from left to right and top to bottom such that the lowest floor is in the upper left corner and the highest floor is in the lower right corner When laid out in this manner the Floor Separation will a
79. es including disks and cylinders They can also be displayed as the artist s mannequin or as their respective human avatars specified in their profiles These options are available under View menu and Agents submenu Coloring Rooms Rooms can be colored in a variety of ways All coloring options are available under the View menu and Color Rooms submenu The default option is to display each room with a unique color They can also be colored by occupant density with red indicating high density and blue low density The last option is to use a mixed mode In this mode the rooms are only colored by concentration if they contain agents otherwise they are colored with their unique colors Room Opacity Sometimes it is useful to be able to see through rooms and stairways such as when drawing on top of an imported background image To change the opacity of a set of components select them and in the property panel change the opacity Opacity settings will carry through to 3D results visualization Model Organization with Groups The main method of organization in Pathfinder is to use groups In every model there are already some implicit groups that cannot be modified including Imported Geometry Profiles Behaviors Occupants Elevators and Floors as shown in Figure 2 3 Sub groups can be created to further organize the model as discussed in the following sections 11 Pathfinder User Manual TEE Profiles f Behaviors rar Occupant
80. exit door leaving the simulation e roomname The number of occupants present in room or stairway roomname at the current time To display this data as a time history plot click View Room Usage on the results menu Occupants Summary The occupants summary file name_occupants csv where name is the name of your saved PTH file provides statistics about each occupant in the simulation Each row of the CSV represents one occupant and provides the following e id A unique integer identifier for the occupant assigned by the simulator e name The name given to the occupant in the user interface e exit time The time at which the occupant exited the simulation e active time The amount of time the occupant was actively seeking an exit e jam time total s The total amount of time the occupant spent moving at less than the Jam Velocity as specified in the simulation parameters see Output Parameters on page 83 e jam time max continuous s The maximum continuous amount of time the occupant spent at less than the Jam Velocity Occupant History For each occupant whose profile has CSV data output enabled see Profiles on page 50 an occupant history file is created with the file name name_occupant_id_occname csv where name is the name of the saved PTH file d is the integer id of the occupant assigned by the simulator and occname is the name of the occupant specified in the user interface Each row in an occupant history file s
81. f simulation time steps Increase the time step size to speed up simulations reduce the time step size to ensure simulation accuracy Output Parameters 3D Output Freq 0 25s CSV Output Freq 10s Runtime Output Freg 0 5s Jam Time Reporting Jam Velocity 0 25 m s Figure 8 2 The Output tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog The Output tab provides the following options e 3D Output Freq controls the time between 3D output file updates Increasing this value causes data to be written less often leading to less disk usage and run faster simulations no file write 83 Pathfinder User Manual delay but can produce a misleading 3D results visualization In the 3D results visualization occupants will move in a straight line between two data points if the two points are far apart in time an occupant might appear to pass through an obstruction when it actually navigated properly e CSV Output Freq controls the time between CSV output file updates Increasing the value causes fewer rows to appear in the resulting CSV files i e lower data resolution This option has a negligible effect on simulation performance or disk usage but can affect performance in the 2D results e Runtime Output Freq controls the time between simulation status updates in the Run Simulation dialog This option has a negligible effect on simulation performance or disk usage e Jam Velocity controls the speed threshold at which
82. ffect the gap between floors in both the X and Y directions An example of this type of layout is shown in Figure 9 5 d By default labels appear above each floor so the floors can be easily identified but these labels can be hidden by opening the View menu and deselecting Show Labels Ip Pathfinder p e i parere FA 9 Foor separation m O Set wallHeght im O set 0000009 OO Time 005 4 35 Speed 1X Framerate 26 0 fps 2D Pathfinder A ee m e e a e e gents Scene Yew Debug IEA 9 For separation m O Set walHeght m d set 00000901 OO Time 005 435 Speed 1X Fr Ele Agents Scene View Debug FBLA 4 A For Separation m 10 Set wal Height m 5 ser 0000009 OU Time 095 435 Speed 1X Framerate 28 8 fps c file Agents Scene View Debug FA 39 Poor separation m 0 set Floor 7 60 Es Ls E E aah 000000 O d Time 005 435 Speed 1X Framerate 28 9 fps Figure 9 5 Multi floor layout options in 3D results FDS model courtesy of Andreas Niggemeyer Animation playback To play back animation press the play button 0 As the animation is playing the time slider will move and the animation can be paused O or stopped 0 The buttons O and 8 will move the time slider to the beginning and end respectively The buttons and will slow down and speed up the animation by factors of two The status ba
83. form some action that they do not want to be recorded To pause movie recording press the pause movie button 0 To resume recording press the resume movie button O Stopping the movie will end recording and disallow any further recording to the file To stop recording press the stop movie button 0 Showing FDS Results Pathfinder provides some support for viewing animation results from the Fire Dynamics Simulator FDS from NIST Current support provides the ability to view animated slices overlaid with Pathfinder results To load FDS results first open the desired Pathfinder results Then under the Analysis menu select Load FDS Results and choose a Smokeview file smv that was generated by FDS The Navigation View will open on the left listing all of the supported FDS output as shown in Figure 9 7 To unload FDS results under the Analysis menu choose Unload FDS Results 100 Pathfinder User Manual ES Pathfinder 2014 x64 slices_multigrid File Agents Scene Debug FDS Results View Help Qu a Do DE X keg Floor Separation m FDS Results 6 TEMPERATURE 1 X 0 750 1 X 10 750 1 X 11 750 1 X 13 250 1 X 14 750 1 X 16 250 1 X 18 250 uo X 19 750 1 X 21 250 oof X 22 500 1 X 24 250 1 X 25 250 of X 3 250 1 X 5 750 1 X 5 750 un X 7 250 X 9 250 0 Wall Height m 0 bea Exited 0 1 E US 0 Y 1 500 0 Y 3 000 0 Y 4 000 Y 5 000 ff
84. g created a dialog will show the progress If the movie is cancelled before it is completed there will still be a valid video it just will not play the entire results 99 Pathfinder User Manual Real time Movies Movies can also be created in real time This means that it will record while the user is interacting with the results and it will record everything the user sees except for the cursor The disadvantage of this type of movie is that it will play back only as smooth and of the same quality as that which the user who created the movie saw So if the scene is very complex and the movie creator s computer cannot view the results smoothly the resulting movie s play back will suffer as well To create a movie of this type press the record button O A file chooser dialog will prompt for the file name of the movie For real time movies the only allowable type is WMV Once the file name is chosen the codec configuration dialog will be shown as in Figure 9 6 b When OK is pressed on this dialog the movie will begin recording At this point anything the user sees will be recorded in the movie Now the user can change the camera angle start and stop playback select occupants change view settings etc and the movie will capture everything At any time the movie can be paused or stopped Pausing the movie will stop the recording but leave the movie file open so that recording can be resumed to the same file This allows the user to per
85. gure 3 27 Drawing stairs using the one point stair TOO cccoocccnconocnnncnncnnnonanonnnnnaconnnononononanonononaoos 29 Figure 328 Stdir property panel ess a a citas 30 Figure 3 29 Stair door property dialog c csssssresssssssccsssrescevsresteususencuserencaeresvensrsencussrencasrensensrsencusars 30 viii Figure 3 30 Changing a Stair into an escalator oocccnconocnnncnnnnnnonononnnonaronnnnnnnnnnnononnnnnnonnnonarnnnonanonnnnnnoss 31 Fietire 5s91 Creating an BlevatO riscos 33 Fe ure 3 32 NEW Elevatordialop pasillo 34 Feure 3 33 Flevator representaci n N ao 34 FISUheS 34 Elevator Property Panel O Mauaecaueane is weeouenanaetaneeeeeas 35 Figure 35 Elevator PHOTOS sn E A 36 Figure 3 362 Elevator Levels dialog iaa eo 36 FISURE 3 37 Elevator Cal SOUS NI E a 37 ESO 338 AMPL a AE T E Sec aac 37 Figure 3 39 Importing a background INGE ira 39 FHeure o 40 Dx UNIT dialog DOK dado 40 Figure 3 41 Drawing rooms Over a background iIMage ooccccccncccncnnnonnnonaconnnnanonnnnanonnnonaconnonannnnonanonnnonaoss 42 Figure 3 42 Property panel for the floor extraction tool cccooocccnconocnnnnnncnnnonanonnnonaconnonaronnonanonnnnnnoss 43 Figure 3 43 A room extracted from a PyroSiM leia aa 43 Figure 3 44 Room extraction results from an imported 2D Floorplan ooccccconccnnnnnocnnnnnnonnnonaninnnonanos 45 Figure 3 45 Using the door tool to fill a dOOrway oooccnconnccnnonononnnnnncnnnona
86. handles 76 Pathfinder User Manual Thick door handles When a thick door is selected six handles will be displayed as shown in Figure 6 11 b The four handles on the corners of the door allow the door to be moved along the edge to which each handle is attached Each middle handle allows the door to be made into a thin door by dragging to the other middle handle The middle handle can also be useful to reattach the door to a room if the door somehow became detached such as by a modification to the room Stair and Ramp handles When a stair or ramp is selected six handles will be displayed as shown in Figure 6 12 The four corner handles each allow the stair ramp to be moved along the edge to which the handle is attached The middle handles allow the stair ramp to be reconnected to another room The middle handles can also be useful if the geometry of one room attached to a stair ramp has changed in such a way that the stair ramp is no longer attached to the room The middle handle can be used in this case to reconnect to the room Figure 6 12 Stair ramp handles Occupant handles When an occupant is selected there is only one handle as shown in Figure 6 13 The sole purpose of this handle is to move the agent to another location Moving an agent in this manner has a benefit over the translation tool in that the location automatically snaps to an existing room or stair as when adding an agent using the agent dropper tool Figure 6
87. he maximum speed From Table The speed factor can be entered as a function of stair slope Stair slope is defined as step rise step run As with the Speed Density Profile when entered from a table the function is entered as a piece wise linear function e Speed Density Up This defines the speed density profile to use when the occupant travels up stairs This has the same options available as on level terrain with one additional option From Level Terrain When From Level Terrain is chosen the occupant uses the same speed density profile as specified on the Level Terrain tab when the occupant travels up stairs e Speed Fraction Down This specifies the speed fraction when the occupant travels down stairs This has the same options available as Speed Fraction Up e Speed Density Down This specifies the speed density profile to use when the occupant travels down stairs This has the same options available as Speed Density Up The Ramps tab has nearly identical properties available as on the Stairs tab The only difference is that Speed Fraction Up and Speed Fraction Down are entered in terms of the ramp s geometric slope rather 56 Pathfinder User Manual than step slope The geometric slope is determined per triangle in the resulting navigation mesh and depends on the triangle s normal As noted in the Advanced Speed Properties dialog when simulating in SFPE mode only the maximum speed property is used All others in the Advanced Speed
88. he positive Y axis at the model The camera can also be reset to the current selection at any time by pressing CTRL E This will cause the camera to zoom in on the selected objects and the orbit tool to rotate about the center of their bounding sphere Filling the view Very similar to resetting the camera the view can be fit by pressing F on the keyboard or selecting the Fit View tool Ed The difference between the Fill View and Reset All tools is that filling the screen does not change the view angle of the camera Instead the camera will recenter rezoom to fit the screen Pathfinder User Manual Drawing in the 3D and 2D views Drawing can be performed in both the 3D view and the top 2D view The 3D view allows the user to see the model from any angle but most tools restrict drawing in the XY plane The top view completely restricts drawing to the XY plane but it also displays an optional snap grid The snap grid size can be set under Edit snap grid spacing in the View menu and it can be turned off by deselecting Show Snap Grid in the View menu Drawing is performed in one of the two following modes e Normal Mode Single click a drawing tool button on the left side of the view Draw the object using the instructions in the appropriate section of the manual When the object has been completed the drawn object s will be selected and the view will revert to the previous navigation tool e Sticky Mode Double click a drawing tool s butt
89. he software and incorporate more useful features The Pathfinder support forum can be found at www thunderheadeng com pathfinder Trademarks All other product or company names that are mentioned in this publication are tradenames trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners Table of Contents As a A o saondensseousanassvadssguecnnees soonsans saueeeosesanveures 1 Graphic User IME a Eeo serra 1 VIDOE FRED eSE NCA O ieee decetaccceesescteasahacoenect nnedamiceciueaceseserahdenseeceevndarocsortnedsnetorsenainseegseroeconaiaees 3 Simulation IMOdES serios ida 4 Limitations and Known ISSUES annie 4 SIOEN E ar ET E EN 4 System REQUIFEMEN Sisi da 4 A A A a o o rer 6 2 Pathfinder Basi sde oe 7 Navicat VIS erie sere Ea 7 SD b 916074 Da VIEWS ricota 8 Navi ana TNE SO VICW orbe 8 Navigating Te 2D MW aorta on nee eee 9 RESCUE ben 9 PNE MEME arta 9 Drawing in the 3D and 2D Views sister 10 VIEW ONIONS aan a a T RE COUPE o 10 Renar 9 d 6 9 E A 10 Occupation eee eae ee eee 11 COMO ROOMS op 11 o A E e E ne Un ToT ee ee 11 Model Organization with GroUDS ae 11 Creatina UDE OUS e E ee eee ere 12 FAIS IVS rol DS ic cer aAA E fee ets EN 12 3 Creating Movement SPACE usina 13 FIOO ida 13 Automaticallv creating NOOS scena E T 13 Manually creating 00 Suicidas 15 Changing te CUS OO Pica a 15 A A A 16 FOO POS UC co 16 ROOI e E E 16 ACCINE AEN TOONS ciar E A E E E 16 Pee NS Pla 18 o ne nn e tenmorssteneineeanuar
90. hows the following data for a particular time e t s The output time for this data row The frequency of output is controlled by the CSV Output Freq box in the Simulation Parameters dialog e id The integer identifier of the occupant assigned by the simulator e name The name assigned to the occupant in the user interface e active Whether the occupant is actively seeking an exit 1 if they are seeking an exit and 0 if not e x m y m z m The 3D location of the occupant e v m s The velocity of the occupant e distance m The total distance the occupant has travelled e location The occupant s current room 92 Pathfinder User Manual 3D Results Pathfinder provides a real time output visualization program for viewing 3D results It operates much like a video player in that it allows users to play pause stop slide and speed up and down time It is completely 3D and allows users to navigate through a model a a Pathfinder 2013 x64 Muli Ste es File Agents Scene View Help DE a A4 h Pb Q Floor Separation m 0 Wall Height m 0 Exited 22 125 everse Time 0 16 1 16 Framerate 1719 7 fps Figure 9 3 3D Results for the multi floor stairwell example problem Navigating through a model Once a model is loaded the navigation tools work similarly to those found in the preprocessor The user can rotate the model 2 zoom in and out and roam X In the 3D results the roam tool
91. ically subtracted from the solid obstructions and discarded If the file contains grids the grids will be intersected with each other as FDS would and the remaining minimum Z faces of the grids will be imported If the file contains OPEN vents the vents will be subtracted from the appropriate grid faces and discarded Working with Imported Data Each type of file that can be imported provides an aid for creating navigation geometry The different types can be worked with in various ways to create the desired rooms stairs and doors Common to all import types is the ability to set some visual properties such as color and opacity for each component of the geometry The imported geometry is sent as is to 3D Results resulting in a clean and fast graphical representation of the data Working with Images Working with background images requires the user to draw all rooms doors and stairs over the background image Because the drawn navigation geometry will cover the background image it may be preferable to make the navigation geometry transparent This can be accomplished by selecting the drawn navigation components and lowering the opacity in the property panel Figure 3 41 shows a background image with rooms and doors drawn on top with a lowered opacity for the drawn rooms ai Ls 3 a i Ls F pu esults He w esuits He 2 gt Hil s O Q s E O il Floor Floor 0 0R eon Moa nn 9 3M a a E
92. ie paies 20 Figure 3 13 Room properties Dane ler 20 Figure 3 14 Edit Speed Modifier dialog ooocccccooccnnnonacnnnonanonnnnononnnonaconnnononnnonanonnnnnnconnnnnrnnnonaninnnnnnoss 21 Figure 3 15 Make Doors Oneway CialOg cccccccsssececceseccecensececeesececceeceseeeseceseuecessugecessunceessuseeesseneses 22 Figure 3 16 Creating an obstruction cccccccsssccccesececceeccceeusececauececsesecceeeusecessuececsuaecessegsceeteusecetseneses 23 Figures SUC ACU WallS ardua sabroso lacoste ini AS 23 Figure 3 18 Doof tool Property panel nessa eos cepas 24 Figure 3 19 Adding a thin door to connect two touching LOOMS ooccccccnnccnccnnccnnnnanonnnonaconnnnannnnonanonnnnnnoss 25 Figure 3 20 Adding a thick door in the empty space between TWO LOOMS cooocccccnnccnncnnnconcnnnonnnonanonnnonanos 26 PISCE S22 1 OOF Property PNE leone artes 26 Figure 3 22 Scripted Events dialog escindida 27 Figure 3 23 Stair geometry requirements ccccsecseccseccseccseeceeceucceusceusceueceuscesscesecessceseceseeeseceseeeseensees 27 Figure 3 24 Property panel for the two point Stair t0ol occoooccccconocnnnonaconnonanonnnnnnonnnonaronnonanonnnnnaoos 28 Figure 3 25 Drawing stairs with the two point stair tool o ccccoocccnconocnnnnnanonnnnanonnnnnnccnnonaronnonanononnnnoss 28 Figure 3 26 Property panel for the one point stair TOO sssessesesrersssreresrrressreresrrersrrrresrreresreresrrereseeress 29 Fi
93. inder can read e Revit to DWG direct The first method is to export a DWG directly from Revit which can then be imported into Pathfinder While simple to perform and only requires Revit this method loses all information about materials including textures due to Revit s limited DWG support To do this in Revit Architecture 2014 perform the following 1 DN MS YS 7 8 9 Open the desired RVT file within Revit Architecture Click the Revit icon at the top left iz Select Export gt CAD Formats gt DWG files In the DWG Export dialog for Export select lt In session view sheet set gt For Show in list select Views in the Model Click the Check None button and then in the view table select the check box for 3D View 3D Other views may be chosen but the DWG will only contain entities visible in the selected views Click the Next button and choose a file name for the DWG file Click OK to create the DWG Import the DWG into Pathfinder e Revit to FBX to AutoCAD to DWG This method requires both Revit and AutoCAD and does not perform a perfect conversion but it retains some information about materials and texture coordinates The steps described here use Revit Architecture 2014 and AutoCAD 2014 L Ss A A Open the desired RVT file within Revit Architecture Click the Revit icon at the top left i Select Export gt FBX Specify the desired filename and click Save Open AutoCAD On the Insert tab in
94. ions of the selected objects e Flatten Objects If selected each object in the selection will be flattened so that all of its geometry lies in the same plane The location of the plane is determined by the Move to option e Move to This specifies how the geometry should be moved in the Z direction This can be one of the following values o Absolute Z All the selected objects will be moved to the same Z plane If Flatten Objects is not selected each object is moved such that its minimum Z touches the specified plane o Z Offset Each object in the selection is moved by the specified Z Distance If Flatten Objects is selected the object is first flattened to the plane that touches the minimum Z of the object s original geometry and then moved by the Z Distance o Z Multiple Each object in the selection is moved to the nearest multiple of a Z location as specified by Z Offset and Z Multiplier The location is determined by the following Z Zoffset Zmultiplier n 46 Pathfinder User Manual where n is an integer such that the resulting z is the closest to the original object s minimum Z location Visual Characteristics Both 2D and 3D imported geometry have visual characteristics All geometry types have an object color and opacity Faces imported from a DWG PSM or FDS file may optionally have materials applied to them which can define more advanced display properties such as texture images as discussed in Materials below If
95. ired options to place occupants and exit the dialog New Group Profile 75 0 Males 30 50 yr 25 0 Change Group Behavior Goto Any Exit Delete Placement 5 Uniform 2 Random Rename i Occupant Count a By Number 50 Sort into Floors Select Occupants By Density 0 01 m2 pers Select Connected Components Add Occupants Create Elevator dd occupants t 5 By Room Type Empty Figure 4 20 Distributing occupants through entire rooms Redistributing Profiles and Behaviors Once occupants have been created the distribution of profiles and behaviors can be reshuffled among them To do so select one or more groups of occupants from the Navigation View right click them and from the right click menu select Properties or double click the occupant group The Edit Group Distributions dialog will appear as shown in Figure 4 21 If more than one profile exists in the model the Profile link can be clicked to edit the distribution as discussed in Group Placement If more than one behavior exists in the model the Behavior link can be clicked to edit its distribution NOTE Changing the distribution of profiles or behaviors will not change the number of occupants in the group It will just change which profile behavior is assigned to each occupant to match the specified distribution as closely as possible 64 Pathfinder User Manual Figure 4 21 Edit Group Distributions dialog 65 Pathfin
96. is vector e Elevator Bounds this defines the bottom most and top most floors the elevator can connect to e Elevator Timing this defines a basic timing model used to calculate the travel times for the elevator to travel from the discharge floor to each pickup floor e Acceleration Elevator Timing optional the acceleration of the elevator Richard W Bukowski and Fang Li Using Elevator In Fires Consulting Specifying engineer July 21 2010 32 Pathfinder User Manual e Max Velocity Elevator Timing the maximum velocity that the elevator can accelerate to e Open Close Time Elevator Timing the sum of the door opening and closing times Each value will be taken as half of this 5 Press OK to create the elevator If necessary Pathfinder will automatically subtract holes in existing geometry to make space for the elevator shaft It will also delete existing rooms doors stairs and ramps in the elevator shaft Pathfinder will ask before making any of these changes In order for occupants to use elevators they must explicitly be told to do so through their behaviors as discussed in Behaviors NOTE The timing values can be re calculated using a new timing model by selecting the elevator selecting Edit next to Level Data in the property panel and then selecting Reset in the level data dialog ETEESI GOC groom E HE Mr a ar E Name X Bounds 5 50 m 9 00 m Mes 1 25m
97. is ii 2 Figure 1 4 The triangulated navigation mesh used to represent one floor in the model 3 Figure 1 5 Models used for system requirements COMpariSON ccoooccccccnccnncnnncnnnonanonnnnanonnnnononnnonaronnnnanonos 5 EA A A 8 PIU 22 NENAS ODO Mastretta EE 10 eure o Prode nne d Er OUD testa 12 oa o E eo ee eee 13 Figure 3 2 Auto floor creation and sorting cccccseseccccseccecesccccausecccseeccceeuscceseuseceseuaecesseaeceesausecetseneses 14 Figure 3 3 Adding a New flOOF ccccoocccnconocnnncnnnonnnnanonnnoncnnnnnnncnnonononnnnnnrrnnonnnrnnonanonnnnnnrnnnonnnrnnonaninnnnnaoos 15 Figure 3 4 Floor property pane poison 16 Figure 3 5 Drawing a room with the polygon tOOl cccccccsssecccesseccccesececeeescceceesececeeeceseeeeeceseusecetseneees 17 Figure 3 6 Drawing a room with the rectangle tool cccooocccnonononnnonacnnnnnnccnnonanonnnnnncnnnonaronnonanonnnnnnoos 17 Figure 3 7 Drawing plane property ssseseesssrensssreresrresssreresrrressrereserenssreresrrressrereserersseeresererssrereserereseerene 18 Figure 3 8 Adding a thin wall to a r00M ocencononcnconocicnonacnononnoronnonoricnonariononarornonoracnonariononarorconaracnonasos 18 Heure 3 9 DIVINE TOO Msn 19 Figure 3 10 Special case for drawing a thin wall ooocccooocncnonnnonnnonaconnnnanonnonanonnnonaconnnnnonononanonnnnanoss 19 PICUPe Sl Mere me TOONS seoran ialies 20 Figure 3 12 Separating a OD en
98. isible Uncheck to hide the room e Color The color of the room If unchecked a default room color is used e Opacity The opacity of the room Making this value less than 100 will cause objects behind the room to become visible e X Y and Z Bounds The geometric bounds of the room e Area The geometric area of the room e Pers The number of occupants currently placed in the room e Density The number of occupants area e Speed Modifier A time variable factor that affects the soeed of each occupant who travels in the room When occupants travel in the room their maximum speed is multiplied by this factor This could be used for instance to represent the effect of smoke on occupant speeds By default the modifier is 1 0 throughout the simulation To change this click the link The Edit Speed Modifier dialog appears as shown in Figure 3 14 In this figure for instance the room initially leaves occupant speeds unmodified but over the first 40 seconds ramps occupant speeds down to 25 of their maximum values Edit Speed Modifier Initial Value 1 0 Timed Values HE Insert Row Ba Remove Row gt Move Up e Move Down Ey copy Figure 3 14 Edit Soeed Modifier dialog Preventing room crossing In some cases such as modeling seating rows or shops in a mall it may be desirable to only allow occupants to exit the room and not cross through it This can be accomplished by making all the doors connected
99. ition each set of doors for the room is shown under the room By default each of the rooms is named after the floor on which it connects If the elevator is disconnected completely from a floor as discussed in Connecting Disconnecting floors the room is named lt Disconnected Level gt E Pathfinder 2011 Creating Elevators pth fi Bile Edit Model View Simulation Results Help hs Wiin o e x Talo roo Ron s AR a laO NE Ar a SHR z A n X Bands 5 50 mm 9 00 m Occ Separabon 30 48 on Discharge Poor Foor 0 0m y Y Baunde 0 00 m 3 50 m Open Delay 8 08 Floor Prionty adan a inperted Geometry Yi veba a Y Prones Zande 0 00m 15 000 CloseDelay 50s Level Data Edt gt z a i Elevators MEA EE 5 0 Level 0 0 m z i Door15 a f Level 3 0 m E Level6 0 m E lt Disconnected Levet me H Level 12 0 m Figure 3 33 Elevator representation 34 Pathfinder User Manual Elevator properties Once an elevator is created the elevator s properties can be edited by first selecting it from the navigation view or by ALT clicking one of its rooms from the 2D or 3D view Its properties can be edited in the property panel as shown in Figure 3 34 X Bounds 114 00 m 16 50m Nominal Load 42 6092 pers Discharge Floor Floor 0 0m Name Elevatoroo Y Bounds 10 00 m 13 00 m Open Delay 5 05 Floor Priority top down El Z Bounds 0 00 m 30 00
100. lected doors e Current Room Distance Penalty this value is used to exponentially increase the cost associated with travelling based on how far the occupant has travelled in the current room This causes the occupant to prefer shorter routes over faster routes the further they have travelled in the current room Every time the occupant travels this distance in the current room the travel time cost will have doubled Setting this value to zero will disable this feature The Output tab provides the following parameter e Print CSV Data When checked an additional output file will be created for each occupant using this profile The file contains data for each time step such as occupant speed location etc For more information see Occupant History on page 92 NOTE Because this feature creates a file for each occupant with the profile each containing several pieces of data for each output time step it may cause the simulation to use significantly more resources including CPU and disk space It may be better to only enable this feature for specific occupants To do this see Customizing Occupants on page 57 The Advanced tab provides the following parameters e Height the height of the cylinder used for inter occupant collisions This is useful for limiting collisions that might occur between occupants on different floors when the floors have been modeled close together e Acceleration Time a Steering Mode parameter that specifies the amou
101. led on both the computer that will create the file and the computer that will play back the file Some popular AVI codecs include Xvid Divx and ffdshow WMV files however do not require special codecs to be installed on either the source or destination computers but they will only work on Windows machines unless special software is installed on another platform 98 Pathfinder User Manual 3 Adialog will show some movie making options as in Figure 9 6 a The options are as follows e Video Size specifies the resulting video s dimensions This is only limited by the maximum size of a viewport on the computer s video hardware with some codecs however each dimension must be a multiple of 2 or 4 If you have trouble creating a movie try making the size a multiple of 4 The Use window size button will set the size to the 3D window s current size e Framerate determines how smoothly the video will play back The higher this number is the smoother the playback at the expense of longer rendering time to create the movie and larger file size 30 frames second provides reasonably smooth video playback e Speed specifies the speed at which the results will play 1 X will play the movie at real time speed 2 X will play the movie twice real time etc e Enable Level of Detail specifies that level of detail rendering should be turned on while creating the movie This will lower the resulting quality but it will decrease the time to make the mo
102. limits the time range to a fixed interval 107 Pathfinder User Manual o If this option is checked for an animated contour the time interval is trailing For instance if this is checked and a time interval of 30 s is entered for an average density contour the average will only be calculated for the trailing 30 seconds of density data at each time step So at t 120s the average is calculated over the time range of 90 120 s If this option is left unchecked the calculation will take place over the entire time range preceding each time step So at t 120s the time range would be 0 120 s o If this option is checked for contour snapshots the time interval is explicitly specified using Minimum Time and Maximum Time If this option is unchecked the time interval is set to the entire results playback time So for instance if there is currently 400 s of results data available the time interval will be 0 400 s e Snapshot Time For contour snapshots this specifies the calculation time that will be displayed during playback NOTE Changing one of the preceding properties also invalidates the optimization file for the modified contour if one exists requiring it to be re calculated See Optimizing Contours on page 109 Exited 0 1981 0000069 nen Influence radius of 1m Figure 9 15 Effect of influence radius on contours The following are visualization properties of contours EN Pahhnder
103. m Close Delay 5 05 Level Data Edit Figure 3 34 Elevator property panel e Nominal Load the number of people in a full elevator load estimated Please read the Nominal Load section below for details e Open Delay the minimum amount of time an elevator s doors will stay open on a pickup floor e Close Delay a delay for closing the elevator doors e Discharge Floor the floor at which occupants will discharge during an evacuation e Floor Priority the priority of the floors for pickup By default this is top down This can be changed however by clicking the text which will show the Floor Priority dialog as shown in Figure 3 35 This allows the simulation of a fire floor e Level Data click the button to edit timing for each floor This will open the Elevator Levels dialog as shown in Figure 3 36 o Delay the time delay from the start of the simulation for when the elevator can start picking up occupants from a floor This value does not affect the discharge floor Open Close Time the total of the door opening and closing time for this floor Pickup Time the time for the elevator to travel from the discharge to the pickup floor Discharge Time the time for the elevator to travel from the pickup to the discharge floor 1 o Reset By selecting the Reset option at the bottom of the dialog an Elevator Timing dialog will open allowing automated recalculation of the Level Data parameters The
104. m s to the occupant Customizing Occupants When occupants are selected their property panel appears as shown in Figure 4 6 Occupants can be given custom profile data once they are added to the model This can be done by selecting a set of occupants and checking the box next to the parameter to be customized When using custom profile data only constant values can be used for occupant parameters In addition once a parameter is customized any changes to that parameter in the profile will not affect the customized value In versions of Pathfinder prior to 2012 1 individual parameters could not be customized If one parameter was to be customized all had to be customized 57 Pathfinder User Manual X Bounds 3 51m 3 05 m pa Priority 0 l Name 00001 Profile Default ha E Color i 7 Visibl Y Bounds 4 27m 4 73m Speed 1 19 m s isible E m Behavior Goto Any Exit Z Bounds 12 77 m 3 23 m oe ba E 3D Model CwWom0018 coe Size 45 58 cm A S53 Figure 4 6 Using a custom occupant profile Occupants with individually customized parameters can easily be found by right clicking all or a sub set of occupants and selecting Select Customized Occupants from the right click menu if any exist in the selection Behaviors Behaviors in Pathfinder represent a sequence of actions the occupant will take throughout the simulation For every behavior there is an implicit action to move the occupant to an exit This impli
105. m width of the doorway to search for and Max Depth refers to the maximum thickness of the doorway These numbers may need to be larger than for the normal creation of a door to find potential doorways Once the appropriate parameters have been entered move the cursor over the desired doorway A door preview will be displayed If it doesn t adjust the search parameters in the property panel and try again If the door appears correctly left click the mouse button The doorway area of the room will be subtracted from the room and the thick door will be created in its place The process is shown in Figure 3 45 Figure 3 45 Using the door tool to fill a doorway 45 Pathfinder User Manual Flattening and Z Location Sometimes when importing from 3d CAD models extracted rooms may not be at the proper height or may have some undesired slope These issues can be corrected either before or after extracting rooms by using the Set Z dialog To do so follow these steps Select the objects that need to be corrected Right click the selection and select Set Z This will open the Set Z dialog as shown in Figure 3 46 aa NM Set the desired options and select OK to modify the geometry in the selection Set Z A Selection Bounds Min Z 0 0m Max 2 6 0 m Move to Absolute Z Z 0 0m cone Figure 3 46 Set Z dialog The dialog shows the following properties and options e Selection Bounds Shows the minimum and maximum Z locat
106. maintain with walls and other static obstructions e Comfort Distance specifies the desired distance one occupant will try to maintain with others in a queue This may be entered explicitly as a distance an occupant area or an occupant density If entered as an occupant area the comfort distance is calculated based on sphere packing 2 na d V12 where c is comfort distance a is the occupant area and d is the occupant s shoulder width Comfort distance is calculated similarly when entered as occupant density except that a 1 p where p is occupant density NOTE When comfort distance is entered in terms of occupant area or density this does not guarantee that occupants will maintain this area or density but they should be fairly close when occupants are queued Each of these parameters except on off parameters can be set using a constant value a uniform distribution between two values or either a normal Gaussian or log normal distribution using a min max standard deviation and mean Each occupant in the Pathfinder model is linked to one profile Profile parameters can be edited in the profiles dialog at any time and the occupants using that profile will be automatically updated Occupants profiles can be set when adding the occupants or by selecting the occupants after being created and editing the Profile box in the property panel Advanced Speed Properties In most cases users only need to enter the maximum speed of a
107. mponents This would have only selected the original room and the door between the room and the hallway This allows finer inspection of connectivity in a highly connected model Checking in use Objects In Pathfinder there are several objects that can refer to other objects in the model For instance an occupant can refer to both a profile and a behavior a behavior can refer to exits the goto elevators action can refer to elevators etc There are times when it is useful to know what objects are referring to another For instance it may be important to know which occupants are using a particular behavior To do this right click the behavior or other in use object and from the right click menu click Select Referencing Objects This will highlight all objects currently using that behavior Warnings and Errors Pathfinder shows warnings and errors in the Navigation Tree to help debug potential errors in the simulation These warnings appear as a small exclamation mark imposed over an occupant or record kE By hovering the mouse over the warning a more detailed description of the problem can be determined For convenience if an object has problems the warning marker is propagated up through the navigation tree to its ancestor groups in order to quickly identify problems in the model Some common warnings include e Warning if stairs are not connected to rooms at both ends e Warning if stairs or doors overlap along an edge 81 Pathfinde
108. mpt will default to the stored unit type The dialog box shows the model s width depth and height based on the selected unit as a guide for selecting the unit Selecting Next brings up the options prompt 39 Pathfinder User Manual 2 Options The options prompt allows the user to specify more options for import Before this Pathfinder will attempt to discern if the CAD file contains a 2D Floorplan or a 3D Model and will select default values for the options based on the detected type e Lines check to import lines in the file default checked only for floorplans e Faces check to import faces in the file default checked only for 3D models e Move geometry to Z if checked all imported geometry will be offset so that the minimum Z lies in the specified Z plane default checked only for 2d floorplans e Flatten so geometry lies in one plane if checked all geometry will be scaled in the Z dimension by a very small scale 1e 9 This is useful for floorplans that have entities drawn in several planes This option will flatten them all into one plane default checked only for 2d floorplans e Adda blank rectangle to obscure lower floors if checked a solid rectangle of the specified color will be added to the model This is useful to obscure geometry located on lower floors The imported rectangle will be excluded from floor extraction by default default checked only for 2d floorplans Import 7116064 H dxf Import 7
109. n occupant in the Characteristics tab of the Edit Profiles dialog The actual speed of the occupant throughout a simulation will vary according to this speed and a set of assumptions from the Engineering Guide to Human Behavior in Fire SFPE 2003 which takes into account the type of terrain being traversed stairs ramps etc and the density of 53 Pathfinder User Manual surrounding occupants See the Pathfinder Technical Reference Pathfinder Resources for more information Pathfinder allows for fine grained control over the speed of the occupant however and the SFPE assumptions can be customized or replaced with other assumptions To do so follow these steps 1 Inthe Model menu click Edit Profiles to open the Edit Profiles dialog 2 Click the Characteristics tab 3 Next to Speed click the drop down box and select Advanced as shown in Figure 4 3 Edit Profiles x Default Name Default Description 3D Model 1103 CMan0012 CWom0001 CWom0018 CWom0019 Edit Color Characteristics Movement Door Choice Output Advanced Priority Level O Speed Constant 1 19 m s Constant Uniform Shoulder Width 45 58 cm Std Normal Log Normal Enter advanced speed properties such as the speed density profile and ramp and stair speeds Reset to Defaults Apply OK Cancel Figure 4 3 Editing advanced speed properties This will open the Advanced Speed Properties dialog as shown in Figure 4 4
110. nation criterion Specify the starting point on the desired edge If the location is valid a preview stair will be shown and the Create button will enable Click the button to create the stairs Single click Set the desired stair width tread rise tread run and termination criterion Move the cursor over the starting point on the room s boundary A preview stair will be displayed Single click to place the stairs Click drag Set the desired tread rise tread run and termination criterion Now click drag along the room s boundary to specify both the location and the width of the stairs Release the mouse to create the stairs Jag OUt OD BO e PARIN Bite BESOO lt gt e Figure 3 27 Drawing stairs using the one point stair tool 29 Pathfinder User Manual After creating stairs in this manner the Z location of the next floor or room will have to match the top of the stairs exactly for the next room to connect properly to the stairs This can be done by clicking the top of the stairs in the 3D or 2D view when choosing the Z location for either the floor or next room Stair properties Stairs have a number of properties that control their geometry and behavior of occupants that travel on them When a stair is selected these properties can be seen in the stair s property panel as shown in Figure 3 28 Riser 17 78 cm Width 121 92 cm One way x Mame Stair01 A Color CA Tread 127 94 Too D Edit JN
111. ndering speed We have found however that integrated Intel video cards often have trouble with this option so it may need to be disabled for these cards The two options Animate Characters in Hardware and Enable Vertex Buffers when combined tend to provide the most benefit on newer graphics hardware 97 Pathfinder User Manual Showing Saved Views If any views were created in the pre processor see Views on page 66 they will appear in a navigation view on the left side of the window The navigation view can be hidden by going to the View menu and de selecting Show Navigation View To show one of the saved views double click the desired view in the navigation view This will automatically switch to the perspective camera and show the view Showing Camera Tours If any camera tours were created in the pre processor they will be available in the navigation view on the left side of the window To begin playback of a camera tour either double click it in the navigation view or select it and click the Show Camera Feed button 7E in the main toolbar To stop the camera tour click the Stop Camera Feed button 7 in the main toolbar Creating Movies Movies can be created from the 3D results for playback on a PC using a video player such as Windows Media Player Creating a movie file allows the results to be distributed to others who do not have the 3D results software that is bundled with Pathfinder Movies can be created in two differen
112. ng between views during playback Tours may loop and or repeat and do not have to start at t 0 There are two ways to create a tour They can either be created from scratch or they can be created from existing views To create a tour from scratch perform the following 1 Inthe Model menu press New Camera Tour This will create an empty camera tour select it and show it in the Navigation View The property panel will appear as in Figure 5 2 2 Enter the desired properties of the camera tour in the property panel e Begin Time The time at which the tour begins This delay will only happen once even if the tour is set to repeat e Path Generation Controls the shape of the camera s path between tour views e Total Time The total time that the tour will take including the begin time but excluding repeats 67 Pathfinder User Manual e Loop If checked the shape of the path will be a loop with the first view also being the last e Repeat If checked the tour will repeat indefinitely once it reaches the last view which may be the first view if Loop is checked When a tour is repeated the begin time is excluded e Preview Previews the tour see Preview a Camera Tour below 3 With the new camera tour selected position the perspective camera in the 3D View to the desired location and orientation For more information on positioning the camera see Navigating the 3D view on page 8 4 Inthe property panel press Add View Thi
113. nk is clicked it will show a dialog where different distribution curves can be entered for the delay similar to those discussed in Profiles e Exits This specifies a set of exit doors the occupant is allowed to exit through during their final implicit exit action Clicking this link will open the exit chooser as shown in Figure 4 9 Choose Exits Door20 v Door22 v Door23 3 objects selected Show groups ok cancel Figure 4 9 Exit Chooser dialog Adding actions Additional actions can be added to any behavior such as going to a room a waypoint an elevator or simply waiting in place To add an action select a behavior or existing behavior action The property panel Figure 4 8 will show a drop down button with the description of an action that can be added To add the currently shown action simply click the button To add a different action click the down arrow shown to the right of the button and select the desired action from the behavior actions list P Add Goto Waypoint Fe Add Goto Waypoint Add Goto Rooms Add Goto Elevators Add Wait Figure 4 10 Behavior actions list Once the desired action is clicked a creation panel will be shown above the 3D 2D View depending on the action Enter the desired parameters in the creation panel as discussed in the following sections and then click Create to create the action and append it to the behavior If the behavior
114. nonnnnnncnnonononnnonaronnonanonnnnnnoss 45 Figure 46 SOU ZOO a 46 Figure 3 47 Imported Geometry property panel oocccccocccnncnnccnnonnnonnnonaconnnnaconnonanonnnnnnconnonnrnnnonanonnnnnnoss 47 Figure 5 48 Material ala A A A 48 Figure 4 1 ine Edit Promesa loa eee tate IED cote cutee eid le tates Sea 50 Figure 4 2 An example of the 3D model dialog oooccccoooccnncnnncnnnonaconnnnncnnnonanonnnnononnnonanonnonanonnnnnaoos 51 Figure 4 3 Editing advanced speed properties ccccesecccsscccesecccesecccenccceeececaececeecesencessencessuecessecenenees 54 Figure 4 4 Advanced Speed Properties dialOg ooooocccnonoccnnonanonnnonaconnnnaronnnnononnnnononnnonaronnonanonononanos 55 Figure 4 5 Speed Density Profile Dialog ccccoocccnconocnnnonaconnonoanonnnnoncnnnonanonnonononnnnnronnonaronnonaninnnnnnoss 56 Figure 4 6 Using a custom OCCUPANT profile coooooccnnonnccnnonononnnonaconnonaronnnnnnonnnnnaconnonarnononaninnnonanos 58 Fi uire 4 7 NEW Behavior dialog cia a sad 58 Figure 4 8 Behavior Property Pa oriol ocio 58 Fire 4 9 EXIT CMOOSEIClAlOS aisl ocios 59 Freire d 10 Behavior acuosa 59 Figure 4 11 Example of action order for a DENAVIOS cccccessccccesseccceesececceuscceeausececsuececsenceessusecetseneses 60 Figure 4 12 Goto Waypoint Creation panel occccconccnnccnncnnnonanonnonononononaronnnnnnonnnnanonnnnnncnnnonannnnonaninnnnnnoss 60 Figure 4d 135GOtO ROO
115. nt of time it takes for the occupant to reach maximum speed from rest or to reach rest from maximum speed The resulting forward acceleration of each occupant is max_speed accel_time The occupant uses a separate reverse acceleration of 2 forward_acceleration and a separate lateral acceleration of 1 5 forward_acceleration 52 Pathfinder User Manual e Reduction Factor a Steering Mode Parameter that specifies how well an occupant may squeeze past others in tight corridors This factor should be specified as greater than O and less than or equal to 1 This factor is directly multiplied by the shoulder width during calculations so a Reduction Factor of 0 5 would lead to the occupant being able to squeeze to one half his shoulder width e Persist Time the amount of time an occupant will maintain an elevated priority when trying to resolve movement conflicts See the Pathfinder Technical Reference Pathfinder Resources for more details e Collision Response Time when multiplied by an occupant s current speed this parameter controls the distance at which an occupant will start recording a cost for colliding with other occupants when steering e Slow Factor specifies a fraction of the occupant s speed at which they are considered to be slow A slow occupant will consider backward directions to separate with others while a fast moving occupant has a tighter more focused direction e Boundary Layer specifies the distance that occupants try to
116. occupants are recorded as being jammed in the Occupants output file The Paths tab provides the following options Max Agent Radius Trim Error 2 54 cm Constrain Edge Length Figure 8 3 The Paths tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog e Max Agent Radius Trim Error this parameter affects how accurately occupants can navigate through tight spaces when the occupants in the simulation have varying sizes The larger this value is the less likely an occupant is to navigate through a space that has a width close to their body diameter With larger values however the simulation will consume less memory and start faster sometimes much faster if every occupant has a different size Each occupant is guaranteed to be able to fit through a space with width equal to the occupant s diameter plus twice this value e Constrain Edge Length controls the triangulation algorithm used to convert the rooms stairways etc into the triangulated mesh used by the simulator By default Pathfinder attempts to generate the fewest and largest possible triangles and this approach works well with Pathfinder s search algorithms However in some situations well behaved triangles can be useful e g to prevent extremely long thin triangles This value can be used to fatten these triangles The Max Edge Length parameter controls the maximum length of any single edge on a room boundary and the Min Angle criteria prevents the system from using triangles
117. ols to graphically move tour views in the 3D 2D view e Delete a tour view to remove it from the tour e Insert a new view into a tour at any position 1 Select the tour view after which the new view should be inserted 2 Position the perspective camera to the desired location 3 Press Insert View or Add View in the property panel Add View only appear if the selected tour view is the last view in the tour In this case the new tour view will be added at the end Changing Views Tours without Re running Simulation Because views and tours are not simulated objects they can be changed in the pre processor after a simulation has been run and the results can be updated without having to re run the simulation This might be useful for instance if a tour needs to be edited to focus on an unexpected result of the simulation To do so follow these steps 69 Pathfinder User Manual Make the desired changes to the view or camera tour in the pre processor On the File menu choose Save Views File Save over the existing input file Re load the results in the 3D Results Viewer pee ae 70 Pathfinder User Manual 6 Editing and Copying Objects Most objects can be edited in two ways in Pathfinder One way is to transform the object including rotating translating moving and mirroring it Another way is to graphically manipulate the objects by dragging handles Objects can also be copied but currently the only way to do this is
118. on collision avoidance and occupant interaction for the final answer and often gives answers more similar to experimental data than the SFPE mode i e steering mode often reports faster evacuation times Door queues are not explicitly used in Steering mode though they do form naturally Time Output Paths Behavior Behavior Mode pea Steering update interval 0 1s 4 Collision Handling Limit Door Flow Rate Figure 8 5 The Steering Behavior tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog The Steering mode supports the following options e Steering update interval specifies how often in simulation time to update the steering calculation This could also be considered to be the cognitive response time of each occupant The higher this number the faster the simulation will run as long as the simulation time step is less but the poorer the decision making skills of each occupant will be e Collision Handling controls whether occupants avoid one another and can collide with each other e Limit Door Flow Rate When checked this imposes a maximum flowrate on doors unless they have it explicitly turned off see Door properties on page 26 The flowrate for each door is calculated from the Boundary Layer and Specific Flow similarly to SFPE Mode The difference between Steering and SFPE Modes is that Steering does not allow flowrates to be based off room density Starting and Managing a Simulation To run a simulation on
119. on on the left panel before beginning to draw When the object is completed the same drawing tool will remain selected and more objects can be drawn with the tool To escape this mode press ESC on the keyboard and the previous navigation tool will be selected A green dot on the tool s icon indicates that the tool is currently in sticky mode Single clicking the tool s icon again will turn off sticky mode but keep the tool selected At any time while drawing the user can press escape which causes the current object to be cancelled and the previous navigation tool to be selected For each tool there are often two ways to create its object One way is to draw the object graphically using the mouse and keyboard The other is to interactively create the object by typing information such as coordinates widths etc in the tool s property panel The property panel will update the graphical preview immediately to reflect changes in the input This allows fine grained control in creating the object The individual drawing tools are discussed in Creating Movement Space View Options Pathfinder provides a variety of view options for displaying both navigation geometry and imported geometry that can also aid with drawing This includes options for rendering geometry displaying agents coloring rooms and setting the transparency of rooms Render Options In the toolbar above the properties window in the 2D and 3D views there are a number of button
120. onent was entered by occupants For doors that served more than 1 occupant the FLOW AVG column shows the result of dividing the total use by the amount of time the room was in use LAST OUT FIRST IN 89 Pathfinder User Manual Door History The door history file name_doors csv where name is the name of your saved PTH file provides results data for doors Each row represents a different time step and the columns are as follows e time s The output time for this data row The frequency of output is controlled by the CSV Output Freq box in the Simulation Parameters dialog e Remaining total The number of occupants remaining in the simulation e Exited total The number of occupants that have successfully passed through an exit door leaving the simulation e doorname width m The total width of the specified door e doorname total boundary m The total boundary layer of the specified door e doorname X The number of occupants who have passed through door doorname since the previous output in the specified direction For columns with no direction specification this is the total number of occupants to pass through the door in both directions since the previous Output e doorname Q The number of occupants who are waiting in the queue to pass through door doorname at the current time This only includes occupants who have actually reached the door and are waiting to enter Occupants that are stacked up waiting to
121. onnnnnnos 86 Figure 8 6 The Run Simulation dialog showing a partially complete simulation coooocncncnnccnnnonoo 87 Figure 9 1 Listing for an example summary report file ooooccnconocnnnonacnnnnnanonnnonaconnnononononanonononanos 89 Figure 9 2 A time history plot for door flow rates cocoooccnnonnccnnonnnonnnnnaconnnnanonnonanonnnnnnconnnnnnnnnonanonnnonanos 91 Figure 9 3 3D Results for the multi floor stairwell example problemM ooocccccnoccnncnnocnnnnnnonononanonnnnnnoss 93 Fig re 9 4 Floor location dialog for 3D Tesla 95 Figure 9 5 Multi floor layout options in 3D results FDS model courtesy of Andreas Niggemeyer 96 Figure 9 6 Movie Option dialogs ccc nics ere eoide lends E ie A rede ees 99 Feure 927 FDS SICE AA A E A aia ciao 101 Figure 9 8 FDS preferences dalog arcada dido ios cotlcids 102 Feure 9 9 Occupant CONTOUES asas 103 Figure 9 10 New Filtered Occupant Contour dialog cccooocccnccnocnnncnancnnonanonnnonaconnnnaronnonanonnnnnaconnnnos 104 Figure 9 11 Occupant contours context MenU sssessssssssessesssrssrserserserssesressrssrssrsseoresseosessessessesseeseesee 105 Figure 9 12 Occupant Contours Properties GialOg cccccccssscccccsseccccenscceceesececeeececeeseceseeecesseneceesenes 106 Figure 9 13 Effect of contour mesh resolution ssssssssseeseseresesreresrrrsssrerosrrerssreroserereseeresererseeereseeresseees 106 Figure 9 14 Density c
122. ontour Each contour has a potentially different set of properties The properties dialog for density is shown in Figure 9 14 Density Properties Name Density Density Radius 0 8 Contour Type Animated Colors Minimum Value 0 55 occs m 2 Maximum Value 3 pas m 2 Colorbar Shading Rainbow 2 e Number of Colors 256 Feather Amount 25 Invert Colors Games Lana Figure 9 14 Density contour properties dialog The following is composite list of all contour properties that control the creation of the contours e Name The name displayed in the navigation view for the contour e Density Radius Controls creation of the density contour This radius determines the area in which occupants are searched on the solution mesh to determine density e Influence Radius Controls the size of the area that each occupant s value has on the contour The value is tapered from the full value where the occupant exists down to zero at this radius The effect of this property is shown in Figure 9 15 e Contour Type Specifies the type of contour Contours may either be Animated or Snapshots If they are animated their values will change as results are played back If they are snapshots however they will always display the same contour value as calculated at a particular time or time range e Limit Time Interval For contours that require a time range such as Average and Maximum filters and Usage Accumulated this option
123. ontour properties dlaloB iia ida 107 Figure 9 15 Effect of influence radi s ON CONTOUFS seresa a a a A a 108 Pathfinder User Manual 1 Introduction Pathfinder is an agent based egress and human movement simulator It provides a graphical user interface for simulation design and execution as well as 2D and 3D visualization tools for results analysis Graphical User Interface Pathfinder includes a graphical user interface that is used primarily to create and run simulation models A screenshot of this user interface is shown in Figure 1 1 This screenshot displays a model of the Theater de Vest in Alkmaar Netherlands The model was created by Van Hooft Adviesburo For clarity the image shows only one of the dxf files used to create the geometry The model includes 2177 occupants AAA tee File Edit Model View Simulation Results Help D e H l g xs o Foor roaz DOOR l eLA AA rs RE Floor Creation Sorting New Egress Components Bp Bw 4 Auto sort egress components Group gy Floor 10 77 m E lp Imported Geometry Y Automatically create floors dh laao 2530 dxf amp t229000 dxf laag dxf Floor height 3 0 m GG G B E a Floor 2 53 m H a Floor 0 0 m H Floor 3 85 m Floor 7 175 m E 47 Floor 10 77 m 19 Bea RREES ADO 204 Figure 1 1 An example of the graphical user interface Model of the Theater de Vest created by Van Hooft Adviesburo
124. ontrol how each contour is generated and displayed To modify these properties right click the Occupant Contours group in the navigation view as shown in Figure 9 11 and select Properties BI occupant contour i fg Density Expand ju Ed Level of Service Collapse el of Service darini pa Mew occupant contour a Normalized Spe Ej New contour filter P EA Speed 8 Time to Exit Optimize contours Delete contour optimization files 2 Delete A ae Ed Usage Accumu a Ed Usage Instantar Figure 9 11 Occupant contours context menu This will show the Occupant Contours Properties dialog as shown in Figure 9 12 105 Pathfinder User Manual Occupant Contours Contour Mesh Maximum Triangle Area Contours Time Step 5 Match results time step Specify time step Figure 9 12 Occupant Contours Properties dialog e Maximum Triangle Area This controls the quality of the generated contours Smaller values result in higher quality contours at the expense of larger optimization files and longer calculation times Specifically this controls the resolution of the underlying computation mesh for the contours The effect of this parameter can be seen in Figure 9 13 e Match results time step Selecting this causes the contours to be generated at the same frequency as the 3D Results This provides the most time accuracy but also takes the longest to generate and cr
125. oors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Ct F Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room16 Copy 1 Cc F Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room16 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Room16 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Stair01 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Stair02 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Stair03 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Stair04 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Stair05 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 56 0 m gt Stair06 Copy 13 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Refuge Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room00 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room00 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room00 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room15 Copy 1 Cd Number of Occupants in Selected Rooms Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Refuge Y Number of Occupants Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room16 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room16 Copy 1 Cc Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Room16 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Stair01 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Stair02 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Stair03 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Stair04 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Stair05 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor 60 0 m gt Stair06 Copy 14 Floors gt Floor
126. oorstairwell z SFPE Basic Total occupants 125 Exit Times s Min 3 2 Max 176 7 Average 85 0 StdDev 53 7 Components All 28 Components Doors 14 Triangles 66 0 0s 2 45 ROOM DOOR FIRST IN LAST OUT TOTAL USE FLOW AVG pers pers s Roomo1 Room02 Door00 Door 01 StairOl stair01 door 1 StairO1l door 2 Room02 Room01 Door 03 Stairo2 StairO2 door 1 StairO2 door 2 Room01 Room02 Door 04 stair03 stair03 door 1 stair03 door 2 Room02 Room01 Stair04 Stair04 door 1 Stair04 door 2 Door 07 Room02 Room01 Figure 9 1 Listing for an example summary report file This file is saved in the simulation directory and given the name name_summary txt where name is the name of your saved PTH file To view it under the Results menu choose Show Summary File The first section shows the mode the simulation was run in the total number of occupants and statistics on the evacuation time It also shows some information about the mesh including the number of triangles and the doors This information can be useful when considering the complexity of a simulation from the standpoint of the simulator The table gives a listing of each component doors rooms and stairs in the simulation For each component the FIRST IN column shows the simulation time when the first occupant entered that component LAST OUT shows the simulation time when the last occupant exited that component The TOTAL USE column shows how many times a comp
127. or Changing this value will change the width of the door but the value cannot exceed the length of its room edge Flowrate Checking this box overrides the default door flowrate setting in the Simulation Parameters Dialog see Parameters on page 83 Setting this value controls the maximum occupant flowrate for the door in units of pers t This could be used for instance to specify a gated mechanism such as a turnstyle A value of 9 pers s for instance would mean that one occupant can go through the door every 1 1 seconds 1 9 One way The one way direction of the door A One way door is one in which occupants can only travel through it in one direction NOTE Even though a door can only be travelled through in two possible directions the drop down box allows X X Y and Y When one of these directions is chosen the actual direction Pathfinder chooses is the closest along the door s normal State Indicates the timed opening and closing of the door By default all doors are always open throughout the simulation To change this click the link The Edit Door State dialog will appear as shown in Figure 3 22 This dialog allows the initial state of the door to be specified as well as additional timed states As shown in the figure for example the door is initially open closes at t 10 s and then opens again at t 30 s j Occupants can ignore the one way setting of doors if their profile has Ignore Oneway Door Restrictions checked
128. ounding box of all the lines as shown in Figure 3 44 b In this case this outer portion of the room can be separated from the inner portion using the Thin Wall tool as discussed in the section Thin walls on page 18 Once separated the outer portion can be deleted When the extraction tool is finished finding a room the room will lie in the working Z plane of the active floor 44 Pathfinder User Manual E Pathfinder 2009 1 Beta untitled des al File E t Model View Simuletion Results Help d o k Y x s 9 D gt da o Y xa 9 05006 Mo eaae sma S Fon iaaii 66e t Moa a a AMN a S e Floors VO FHe EESBoO se4 al e a D A o amp a a Dew ve b Figure 3 44 Room extraction results from an imported 2D Floorplan Filling in missing pieces Once rooms have been extracted using the 3D or 2D room extraction tools the model will still be missing doors and stairs Doors and stairs must be added manually as discussed in the appropriate sections of this guide One feature that may be of particular interest to help this process however is the internal door feature of the door tool This feature automatically finds areas within a room that look like potential doorways and can be used to create a thick door in this area To use this feature select the door tool In the property panel for the tool as shown in Figure 3 18 the Max Width refers to the maximu
129. out optimization Check Remember my decision to prevent being asked in the future This can be changed in the preferences by going to File gt Preferences Once a contour is active it will appear bold in the navigation view In the model view the contour will appear overlaid on the navigation mesh or imported geometry and a colorbar legend will appear to the right The active contour can be hidden by either double clicking it in the navigation view or right clicking it and selecting Hide Optimizing Contours Each contour may optionally be optimized for playback Optimizing a contour is especially helpful with complex models as it typically allows for much smoother playback and faster seeking when the contour is active especially for contour filters Contour optimization only has to be performed once per contour as the optimization is stored on disk allowing it to be accessed during later sessions The optimization file for each contour is stored in the same directory as the results and will have a filename based on the results filename and the contour s quantity and filter For instance a model named test pth will have a density file name test density octranim There are several ways to optimize a contour The first two methods optimize the contour ahead of time This is the best option but it comes at the cost of requiring time up front to calculate the contour Here are all the options for optimizing a contour e Manually
130. priority to simulate fire floors When travelling to a pickup floor the elevator can change to another pickup floor mid flight if a higher priority floor is called that is above the elevator s current location Once an elevator has picked up occupants it will only travel to the discharge floor before letting the occupants off It will not travel to any other floor to pick up more occupants Creating elevators Elevators can be made after creating the rest of the model Perform the following steps to create the elevator refer to Figure 3 31 1 2 3 4 Draw a room that defines the shape of the elevator preferably on the discharge floor Draw all doors on the boundary of the base room Occupants will use these doors on every floor to enter and exit the elevator Right click the base room and from the right click menu select Create Elevator This will show the New Elevator dialog as shown in Figure 3 32 In the New Elevator dialog enter all parameters for the elevator e Name the name of the elevator e Nominal Load the number of people in a full load estimated Please read the Nominal Load section below for details e Elevator Geometry the base room that defines the elevator shape This defaults to the room that was originally selected e Travel Direction a vector defining the direction the elevator can travel This vector will automatically be normalized NOTE the elevator can travel negatively against th
131. provides additional capabilities for navigating through the model e Course Positioning As in the preprocessor the roam tool allows the camera to be quickly moved throughout the model at the expense of precision To move the camera in this way in the XY plane hold Ctrl while dragging the left mouse button or drag the middle mouse button To move the camera along the Z axis hold Alt while dragging the left mouse button or drag the right mouse button e Precise Positioning When the camera is roughly in the correct spot it can be moved to a more precise location by using the keys w and s to move the camera forward and backward along the viewing direction and the keys a and d to move the camera left and right respectively In addition Space moves the camera up along the Z axis and c moves the camera down Pressing these keys moves the camera at a fixed speed Holding Shift while pressing them doubles the speed e Smooth Positioning The roam tool can also be used to smoothly animate the camera to any location To do so press and release the middle mouse button The cursor will disappear and 93 Pathfinder User Manual the tool will enter Roam Mode In this mode moving the mouse will pivot the camera about its location Pressing and dragging the left mouse button will move the camera in the XY plane The further the mouse is moved from its button press the faster the camera will move This can sim
132. r User Manual e Warning if stairs or doors create a non manifold topology e g a stair connects to the inside of a room rather than an outer wall or connects to two rooms on one of its ends Problematic objects can be quickly selected by right clicking a group in the tree that has a warning or error icon and selecting either Select Errors or Select Warnings from the right click menu In addition if the warning on a component indicates that it interferes or overlaps with other components the objects with which it interferes can be quickly selecting by right clicking the object with the warning and selecting Select conflicting components from the right click menu As a general note if the warning Edge is adjacent to more than 2 triangles appears when simulating an option to click Cancel appears to highlight the navigation components causing the warning 82 Pathfinder User Manual 8 Simulating Parameters The Simulation Parameters dialog provides a way to control certain features of the simulation as well as provide some default values Time Parameters Time Output Paths Behavior misc Y Time Limit 3600 0 s Time Step Size 0 025 s Figure 8 1 The Time tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog The Time tab provides the following options e Time Limit can be used to automatically stop the simulation after a set simulation time e Time Step Size controls the resolution o
133. r at the bottom of the screen shows information about playback The first section from left to right shows the current playback status This will display Playing l Paused or Stopped The Pathfinder User Manual following section shows the current playback time in minutes The next section shows the current playback speed The last section shows the current rendering speed in frames per second a common speed measurement in computer graphics This can help determine how well a user s computer handles 3D playback Some ways to increase this are discussed in the section Controlling drawing detail speed Refreshing Results Results can be viewed as a simulation is running but they will only be current to the last load or refresh To refresh the results at any time press F5 on the keyboard or select Refresh Results in the File menu The current playback time will be restored after refreshing the results making the refresh as seamless as possible If the results are viewed before the simulation is finished upon completion the results will automatically be refreshed and brought to the front of the screen Viewing occupant paths One option that can help visualize flow in an evacuation is to turn on occupant paths This can be enabled by checking Show Occupant Paths in the View menu When turned on each occupant s path will be drawn from t 0 to the current playing time Controlling drawing detail speed There are several op
134. rawing tool is selected and an object or several objects are selected this panel will show the properties relevant to the selection The panel of buttons on the left shows move copy and drawing tools The small panel at the bottom displays messages relevant to the current tool oEeo a AAA sa RE Xi 38 0m Yi 2 0m Z Plane 0 0m Create X2 3 5m Y2 3 0 m P Se kEEESHOA se Rectangle Second corner 3 5 3 0 m width 11 5 m height 5 m Figure 2 1 3D and 2D views Navigating the 3D view Several tools are provided for navigating through the model in the 3D view including orbit roam pan and zoom tools Pathfinder User Manual The main navigation tool for the 3D view is the Orbit tool 4h By left clicking and dragging the model is rotated about its center point The scroll wheel can be used to zoom in and out on a specific point Holding SHIFT on the keyboard and then clicking and dragging will pan the camera and holding ALT while dragging will zoom in and out Another navigation tool in the 3D view is the Roam tool This tool allows the camera to move in and out of the model at will Without holding any keyboard keys dragging the mouse will cause the camera to rotate about the camera s location So dragging the mouse up will make the camera look up and dragging it left and right makes it look left and right Holding CTRL while dragging will make the camera move forward and backward in the XY pl
135. re three filtering modes for presenting the flowrate that are selectable through the View menu e Raw this provides raw flowrate which is simply num_occs dt where num_occs is the number of occupants to pass through the door in an output time step and dt is the output time step e Low pass Filter the raw flowrate is filtered with a bi quad low pass filter with a user specified cutoff frequency This is the default filter and the default cut off frequency is 05 Hz Lower cut off frequencies produce smoother graphs e Moving average Filter the raw flowrate is averaged over a user specified period Door Usage To view door usage open the Door Flowrate Rates dialog and on the Mode menu select Occupant Counts This shows the number of occupants that use a particular door in each output time step Alternatively cumulative totals can be viewed by selecting Cumulative Occupant Counts This shows the total number of occupants to use the door up until that time Room History The room history file name_rooms csv where name is the name of your saved PTH file provides the following information columns in each row e time s The output time for this data row The frequency of output is controlled by the CSV Output Freq box in the Simulation Parameters dialog 91 Pathfinder User Manual e Remaining Total The number of occupants still in the simulation e Exited Total The number of occupants that have successfully passed through an
136. reach a door will not be counted This value is only meaningful in SFPE mode This file is used to display door flowrate specific flow and usage history in Pathfinder Door Flowrate and Specific Flow To view door flowrate or specific flow click View Door Flow Rates on the Results menu This opens a time history plot for doors as in Figure 9 2 This plot shows data from the door history file In the left portion of the window is a list of the doors and on the right is a graph of the data 90 Pathfinder User Manual Flow Rates C Temp MultiFloorStairwell_doors csv E File Edit View Mode EFS Flow Rates for Selected Doors Door01 X Door01 X Door03 Door03 X Door03 X StairO3 door Door04 eee Door04 X ninia 36 53 2 09 Doord0 Door07 Door07 X Door07 X Door08 Door08 X Door08 X Stair01 door 1 StairO1 door 1 Y Stair01 door 1 Y Stair01 door 2 Stair0 1 door 2 Y Stair0 1 door 2 Y Y Stair02 door 1 Stair02 door 1 Y Stair02 door 1 Y Stair02 door 2 Stair02 door 2 Y Stair02 door 2 Y j J Stair03 door 1 0 0 10 00 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 90 00 Stair03 door 1 Y Time in Seconds Stair03 door 1 Y StairO4 door Flow Rate pers s Figure 9 2 A time history plot for door flow rates By default door flow rates are shown Alternatively on the Mode menu choose Specific Flow to view door specific flow There a
137. rs e Show Nav Mesh Only this shows only the navigation mesh e Show Imported Geom Only this shows only the imported geometry Displaying occupants Occupants can be displayed in several ways They can be shown as simple shapes as realistic people or as the artist s wood mannequin All display options are found under the Agents menu The first way to display occupants is as simple shapes including disks and cylinders Because of the simplicity this is the fastest way to view agents for loading and on some graphics cards rendering speed but it is the least realistic and contains little animation Another way to display occupants is as realistic people The avatar selected in the pre processor determines which avatar is shown in the 3D results Displayed this way occupants may render slower on some graphics cards and will take longer to load but the scene will appear much more realistic and should still be fast enough to display hundreds to thousands of occupants depending on the processor speed and graphics card The last way to display occupants is as the artist s mannequin Generally this is faster than showing people and is completely generic contains animation and still provides a degree of realism above simple shapes It does not however represent colors set on the occupants 94 Pathfinder User Manual Selecting Occupants Occupants can be selected for tracking purposes by clicking on the occupant When selected
138. rs without Re running Simulation ccccccccccnnnncnnnnnnnnnnananininanacanananinanonos 69 EGILING and Copying ODICCUS ii aeai 71 Transforming and Copying Objects ccccccesssccccesseccceesecccceeceeceeececsesececeuncesseeeceessnsecetsuneces 71 A r A 71 ROUNE na OS 72 A vote seccnetonsuancecuivanetonseeds a E a a a 74 Manipulating Objects with Handles etica aliada 75 Selecting and deselecting a handle occccccncccncnnncnnnnnacnnnonaconnonanonnnnnncnnnnnnonnnonanonnnnanonnnnnnoss 75 Edine Amden a a a a a a naib asa sskemabeadealesetnie 76 ROOM NONE S erine aa a a a aa aa a a N 76 TOO Ol Manes PA e n n a E N N 76 da o a a A N 77 Stal aN Gs Ramo nacer aa a a aa a 77 Occupant MAN Gles asainn nane a a aA 77 Way DONT ANAE taa a a a a N 78 Model Analysis iia a a a 79 Measuring DISTANCES 1 AA A 79 Checking CONNECUVI ia AAA 79 CHECKING in use ODE A a 81 Warning cand EROS iia 81 MUA IA ci 83 Parame oS eena a a aa datamacansemuntecucaie tan enters aunabanad sansateatien tan a 83 TUNG Pal AMS CCS aaa tabeteccacu donate Rees wana tats E tatiana clara hodueuceuacienentse 83 output Paramete S suei ia 83 Be avi orParanete S renen aa aa a a A dns cuedui noel ee cente 85 Starting and Managing a Simulation A AO 86 Simulating Via COMMANGFHING anra T E E NS 87 Stopping and Resuming a SIMULATION ooccccooocnnnonnncnnnnnanonnonanonnonanonnnnnaronnnnanrnnonononnnnnaronnnnns 87 Suck 88 A coarnisinano reaa borea EE EAr Aa E
139. s drawn overlapping another the overlapping area will be subtracted from the old room and given to the new Rooms can also be merged into one separated into constituent parts and have internal thin boundaries drawn in them These features are discussed in the following sections Adding new rooms Pathfinder provides two tools for adding new room geometry e Polygonal Room Tool The Polygonal Room tool A allows for the creation of complex shapes with any number of vertices Left click anywhere in the model to set the first point and continue left clicking to add more points to the polygon When at least three points are defined right clicking will close the polygon and complete the shape Alternatively x y coordinates can be entered from the keyboard with the Add Point and Close Polygon buttons from the property panel 16 Pathfinder User Manual Add Point Z Plane 0 0m X 0 0m Pick Z from Scene Y 0 0m Close Polygon OIT DOERREECSNOONTS Figure 3 5 Drawing a room with the polygon tool e Rectangular Room Tool The Rectangular Room tool O creates simple rectangular geometry by left clicking two points in the model The rectangular area can also be created by entering coordinates for two points in the property panel and clicking the Create button Z Plane 0 0m X1 5 5m Pick Z fromScene x2 3 5m Figure 3 6 Drawing a room with the rectangle tool In addition to creating new areas
140. s os Elevators Floors Figure 2 3 Predefined groups Creating sub groups Sub groups can be created under Imported Geometry Occupants Elevators and Floors floors are discussed in the section Floors Groups can also be created in other sub groups To create a new group right click the desired parent group in the navigation view and select New Group or select New Group from the Model menu A dialog will display allowing the user to select the parent group which will automatically be selected if performed from the right click menu and a name for the new group Click OK to create the new group Changing groups An object can be moved from one group to another at any time To change an object s group drag the object to the desired group in the Navigation View or right click the object and select Change Group This will show a dialog that will allow the user to choose the new group The options shown for the new group will only be valid groups for which the group can be changed Select OK to change the group 12 Pathfinder User Manual 3 Creating Movement Space Pathfinder is built on the idea of creating floor space on which occupants can walk Every navigation component drawn in Pathfinder is some piece of flooring that can be travelled on which can range from floors to doorways to stairs Obstructions exist as holes in the floor The main egress components include rooms which are empty floor spaces boun
141. s as shown in Figure 2 2 that control how geometry is rendered Be a a a ee Gesa Figure 2 2 Render options 10 Pathfinder User Manual From left to right the buttons are Wireframe Rendering Solid Rendering Show Materials Show Object Outlines Smooth Lighting Show Navigation Geometry Show Imported Geometry and Show Occupants e Wireframe Rendering displays imported 3D geometry as wireframe only This option is mutually exclusive with the solid rendering option It is useful for drawing doors in the 2D view when 3D geometry has been imported e Solid Rendering displays imported 3D geometry filled in This is selected by default e Show Materials shows materials applied to the faces of imported 3D geometry This is selected by default e Show Object Outlines shows the outlines of 3D imported geometry This is similar to showing the wireframe and solid versions at the same time e Smooth Lighting uses a more realistic shading model to show all geometry This may be a little slower to render on older graphics cards e Show Navigation Geometry This toggles the visibility of all the navigation geometry It does not affect anything else including imported geometry and occupants e Show Imported Geometry This toggles the visibility of all imported 3D geometry e Show Occupants This toggles the visibility of occupants Occupant Display Occupants can be displayed using a number of options They can be viewed as simple shap
142. s destination is an elevator they will first move toward the walls as in waiting in a room and then stand still when the elevator travels In all cases a waiting occupant will move out of the way of occupants headed toward a destination unless the destination overlaps with the waiting occupant s most recent destination To add a Wait action click Add Wait from the behavior actions list The creation panel is shown in Figure 4 15 The Wait Time specifies the amount of time they will wait at their current location 61 Pathfinder User Manual Add to Behavior Goto Elevators Wait Time 10 0 s Figure 4 15 Wait creation panel Adding Occupants Occupants can be placed individually in the 3D or 2D view distributed in a rectangular region of a particular room or distributed through the entire area of a room or multiple rooms Individual placement Individual occupants can be added to the model with the Add Occupant tool a Occupants can only be placed in pre existing rooms and stairs and cannot overlap other occupants or room boundaries Left click a desired position with the mouse or enter an x y z coordinate and press the Create button from the property panel to place an occupant x 0 7473 m We 0 26703 m Z o o m Profile Der y Create Figure 4 16 Adding occupants individually Group Placement Groups of occupants can be added to the model with the Add Occupant Group tool th The occupants are distri
143. s will add a new tour view to the tour select it and show its properties as in Figure 5 3 The new tour view will be initialized to the current state of the perspective camera 5 Edit the properties of the newly added tour view e Transition Time The amount of time it takes for the perspective camera to transition from the previous view to this view This value may be zero In this case this view will immediately show after the previous view e Wait Time The amount of time for the camera to remain stationary with the current view before it starts transitioning to the next view e Update View Updates this view with the current state of the perspective camera 6 Repeat steps 3 5 for all the desired views s Bounds 17976931348623 Begin Time 0 0 s Loop Mame Tourlld S e Y Bounds 17976931348623 Path Generation Chordal Repeat Add view isible l Z Bounds 17976931348623 Total Time 00s Preview Figure 5 2 Camera Tour property panel x Bounds 22 63 m 22 63 Transition Time 10 05 Mame Tour view 4 Y Bounds 3 83 m 3 83 m wait Time O 0s Add view J Visible Z Bounds 9 95 m 9 95m Update view Figure 5 3 Camera Tour View property panel Creating Tours from Existing Views To create a tour from existing views perform the following 1 Select the desired views in the navigation view or 3D 2D View The order in which they are selected determines the order in which they will appear in the created tour
144. ser Manual long as they share a common edge They can also be merged with stairs and ramps but the stairs and ramps will be converted into rooms and will lose their stair ramp properties Select Ghildren New Floor Set as Active Floor Show All Floors 3 Delete Delete Rename Sort Alphabetically Select Occupants Select Connected Components Add Occupants Merge Ctrl M Separate Ctrl P Figure 3 11 Merging rooms e Separate The Separate command breaks a room into its constituent parts along any negative space that divides it To use it select the room to be separated and select Separate from either the Model menu or the right click menu Select Ghildren New Floor Set as Active Floor Show All Floors 2 Delete Rename Sort Alphabetically Select Occupants Select Connected Comp Add Occupants Merge Separate Hide Figure 3 12 Separating a room Room properties To view and edit room properties select a room Its properties will be displayed in the property panel as shown in Figure 3 13 X Bounds 6 62m 2 21m Coor E Opacity 100 0 Name Room00 Y Bounds 3 93m 3 73m Visible Z Bounds 0 00 m 0 00 m Figure 3 13 Room properties panel 20 Area 67 6356 m Pers O Density 0 0 pers m2 Speed Modifier Always 1 0 Pathfinder User Manual e Name An identifying name for room e Visible Whether the room is currently v
145. showing the floor s name its working Z location and the Z clipping planes for imported 3D geometry It also shows some statistics of the floor including the total area of the floor Area number of people on the floor Pers and density of people Working Z 2 4m Area 33 9567 m2 Name FAm Floor 2 4 m Z Min Filter CURR_FLOOR To 0 Visible Z Max Filter NEXT_FLOOR Density 0 0 pers m Figure 3 4 Floor property panel The Working Z property controls the plane on which new rooms and wall obstructions are drawn The Z min and max filters control the clipping planes of imported 3D geometry when the floor is visible Anything below Z min and above Z max is clipped The Z Min Filter property can either be a Z plane location or can have the special value CURR_FLOOR If it is CURR_FLOOR then the clipping plane is set to the working Z location if there are any floors below this floor or ee if there are no floors below The Z Max Filter can be a Z plane location or can have the special value NEXT_FLOOR If it is NEXT_FLOOR then the Z plane is set to the working Z plane of the next higher floor if one exists or 2 if there are no higher floors Rooms Rooms are open space on which occupants can freely travel Each room is bounded on all sides by walls Rooms can be drawn so that they touch each other but an occupant can only travel between them if they are connected by a door Only one room can occupy a given space at any time so if one room i
146. stores items that were imported from an image or an FDS PyroSim or DXF model These objects do not affect the simulation but are carried through to help with results analysis They can also be used to automatically extract rooms a iene m 2 The Profiles group contains the occupant profiles that have been T cena created using the Edit Profiles dialog ance 3 The Behaviors group contains user defined scripts that tell E Landing occupants how to behave oie 4 The Occupants group contains every occupant in the model If ay Floor 3 0 m occupants are added to the model using a tool that adds more than one occupant at a time they will be collected in a sub group 5 The Elevators group contains evacuation elevators in the model 6 The Floors group defines the floors in the model and each floor contains all geometry necessary to create a movement mesh including room stairway ramp door and exit definitions The buttons directly above the Navigation View perform the following actions Auto Expand Selection when an object or occupant in the 3D or 2D view is selected this action will expand the groups of the Navigation View as needed to show the selected object Collapse All collapses all expanded groups in the Navigation View Expand All expands all groups in the Navigation View including sub groups Pathfinder User Manual The Floor box above the view can be used to manage floors Any time a room stair ramp or
147. t ways One way is to create a high quality movie that is rendered offline The other is to create a lower quality movie in real time that allows the user to interact with the scene while the movie is recording High Quality Movies High quality movies are useful if a user wants a movie that is unrestricted by size and frame rate This means that it will play back smoothly at any resolution and with any high quality settings turned on regardless of the complexity of the scene The disadvantage to this type of movie is that the camera movements must be pre planned using camera tours Otherwise the camera will remain static In addition the user cannot interact with the scene while the movie is being created such as changing the selected occupant turning on and off paths etc To create a high quality movie 1 Activate the desired camera tour to be used for the movie by double clicking it in the navigation view 2 Inthe File menu select Create Movie A file chooser will ask for the file name of the resulting movie From this file chooser the type of movie can be specified as an Audio Video Interlaced AVI file or a Windows Media Format WMV file AVI files can be rendered as uncompressed or compressed WMV files can only be compressed Uncompressed files will be very large but will be of the highest quality Compressed files are much smaller in size but with some reduced quality To create compressed AVI files video codecs must be instal
148. tairs e Two click with drag Click drag on the first edge to specify both the starting point and width of the stairs Release the mouse and then single click on the second edge to place the stairs 1 3 5m gt 10 0m Stair Width 121 92 cm Tread Rise 17 78 cm 1 11 39308 m 2 0 0m Doorl Width STAIR_WIDTH Create Tread Run 27 94 cm ANNE 71 10 0 m 22 10 0 m Door Width STAIR_WIDTH Figure 3 24 Property panel for the two point stair tool EA Pathfinder untitled daa Pathfinder untitled Jog Ble Edt Model Wew Simulation ple Edt Model View Simulation Bola 29Xx Nn 00 ells yxan 0 Floor 0 0 m en SO QO Pla RAFA Fron Fko 0 0 m OOOO BE BO Ye RIA FAMA 100 Sar Width 121 92 cm 00 ST Sar Width 121 92 cm S oon Mu m Tread Rise 17 78 om l ce y id o Tread Rise 17 78 cm ka iported Otonet Yi 0 67 Docrl Width STAIR WIDTH kinih importes Geonen YI 0 5741 mM V 1 60241 mm Coord Widhe STAIR WIDTH pr gt Profiles 1 00m 2 0 0m Door Width STAIR_WIDTH Profies 200 3 0m Door Widthe STAIR_WIDTH Deist Ostaa a Occupants a a Cccupants a Floors Floors gt floes 6 0 m o gt Heer 0 0 m o Room oO Foomet o foom m Roomiz wi a a Dev Dev Figure 3 25 Drawing stairs with the two point stair tool Stairs extending from one edge Another way to create stairs is to have them extend from an edge and exactly match the specified tread rise and run They will s
149. ted below and click on the i image at the desired anchor image at the desired anchor iT location Then enter the st i location Then enter the F 4 f MEA coordinates For the coordinates For the a Y a corresponding point in the corresponding point in the TES ES model model y ES E very ni TT h Model X E Model X 5 p LY Model Y Model Y Model Z Image Brightness Opacity 2 E 100 Model Z Image Brightness Opacity E 100 Gi Pathfinder untitled Eu Eje Est Model Ver Smain ds c x am ooo Fos Foor 00m vi S2BS BD SO Ya 92 Name impares Decret y F viie Portes cpns Poss a Poor 8 4m o Sme Mar seat org D id a kJ a iz Dev a Figure 3 39 Importing a background image The imported image is added to the Imported Geometry gt Background Images group in the Navigation View The image can be edited and deleted from there In addition any number of images can be added to any floor Importing CAD files Pathfinder can also fully import files saved in AutoCAD s Drawing Exchange Format DXF as well drawing DWG files To import a DXF or DWG file under the File menu select Import and select the desired file After selecting a file a step by step dialog will open as shown in Figure 3 40 1 Units The first prompt asks the user to select the base unit in which the CAD file was created If the drawing was saved ina more recent file format the pro
150. ter Contour optimization files may be very large for models with large navigation areas and or long simulation times These optimization files may be deleted at any time to preserve disk space in one of two ways e Inthe navigation view right click the contours for which their optimization files should be deleted and select Delete optimization file e Inthe Analysis menu select Delete contour optimization files This will delete the optimization files for all contours still present in the results 110 Pathfinder User Manual 10 References Fruin John J 1987 pedestrian planning and design Revised Edition s l Elevator World Inc 1987 4 pp 71 87 SFPE 2003 Movement Engineering Guide to Human Behavior in Fire s Society of Fire Protection Engineers 2003 Thunderhead Engineering Pathfinder Resources Pathfinder Technical Reference Manual Online http www thunderheadeng com pathfinder pathfinder resources Pathfinder User Manual 11 Index 2D View 7 8 Navigating 9 3D Results 93 Casual Dress 94 Mannequin 94 Navigating 93 Simple Shapes 94 3D View 7 8 Navigating 8 Add Occupants 64 Add Occupants Dialog 64 Animation Playback 96 Background Images 38 Collision Handling 86 Door Tool 24 25 Doors 13 24 Exit 37 Thick 25 Thin 24 DXF Files 39 Edit Profiles Dialog 50 FDS Files 42 Floors 7 8 13 Changing Active Floor 15 Creating 15 Editing 16 Imported Geometry
151. the Model menu click Run Simulation 0 The simulation will begin and the Run Simulation dialog shown in Figure 8 6 will appear 86 Pathfinder User Manual Sim Time s Run Time s I Occs Rem Occs Total DTG Max m l DTG Avg m running simulation SIMULATION BEGIN Show results when finished Y Pause if occupants appear to be stuck Debug Results Pause Figure 8 6 The Run Simulation dialog showing a partially complete simulation In this dialog the abbreviation DTG stands for distance to goal The maximum distance to goal represents distance to goal for the occupant farthest from its goal The average distance to goal is the average of all occupants distances to their respective goals The Debug button launches a runtime visualization that shows the progress of the simulation as it is taking place This function is different from the Results button which launches the 3D visualization view for simulation results A simulation can also be paused resumed and cancelled at any time Simulating via command line Simulations can also be run through the command line without loading the user interface To do so open a command prompt Run testsim bat located in the Pathfinder install folder The only argument is the input txt file generated by Pathfinder Pathfinder automatically creates this file when performing a simulation through the user interface The input file can be m
152. the creation panel or be filled in by clicking a point on the navigation mesh in the 3D or 2D View or click dragging to specify the location arrival radius When clicking or click dragging the action is created when the mouse button is released X 2 17499 m Create Add to Behavior Goto Elevators Location Y 22 2619m Arrival Radius 1 5m Z 29 0339 m Ena Figure 4 12 Goto Waypoint creation panel Goto Rooms action A Goto Rooms action specifies that an occupant must select a room out of a set and go to it Once they cross a door into the room they is considered to be in the room and can move on to the next action in their behavior If multiple rooms are specified for the action the occupant will go to the one that is fastest for him to reach To add a Goto Rooms action click the Add Goto Rooms button from the behavior actions list The creation panel will appear as in Figure 4 13 Either click the Rooms link to specify the rooms with a dialog or left click the desired rooms in the 3D or 2D View Right click in the 3D 2D View to finish selecting the rooms and create the action or click Create 60 Pathfinder User Manual Create Add to Behavior Goto Elevators Rooms Room00 Room021 Cancel Figure 4 13 Goto Rooms creation panel Goto Elevators action A Goto Elevators action tells an occupant to use evacuation elevators When using this action an occupant will go to a specified elevator call it wait
153. the ribbon select Import Select the FBX file created by Revit The FBX Import Options dialog will appear The following are recommended settings for the FBX import e Import section Make sure Objects and Materials are checked Lights and Cameras are unused in Pathfinder e Assign Objects to Layers any option may be selected but By Material is a useful option for Pathfinder e Unit Conversion This section is somewhat misleading While the Current Drawing Unit is correct the FBX file unit tends to be incorrect No matter what unit is displayed in the greyed out text for FBX file units the actual unit in the FBX file is always FOOT The appropriate values need to be specified to make the proper unit conversion For instance if the current drawing unit is Millimeters you can enter the value 1 on the left and 304 8 on the right because there is 1 foot per 304 8 millimeters 41 Pathfinder User Manual e Block Uncheck Insert file as block 9 Click OK to finish the import You may receive a warning about the clip plane of the camera 10 Save the file as a DWG 11 Import the DWG into Pathfinder Importing PyroSim and FDS files Both PyroSim and FDS files can be imported into Pathfinder To import one of these file types select Import under the File menu Then select the appropriate FDS or PSM file The imported geometry will be added to the Imported Geometry group If the imported file contains holes the holes will be automat
154. through the transform tools as discussed in the following section Transforming and Copying Objects All geometric objects can be transformed and or copied All transform copy options are available through tools in the 3D and 2D views The following transforms are available and are discussed in the following sections moving rotating and mirroring Moving To move one or more objects select the objects and click the move tool gt from the 2D or 3D view The property panel for the move tool is shown in Figure 6 1 Move X 0 0 m Normal Mode Move Move Y 0 0 m Copy Mode Copies 1 Cancel Move Zi 0 0m Figure 6 1 Property panel for the translate tool The object can be moved either manually or graphically e Manually Select Normal Mode and enter the distance to offset the object in the Move X Y and Z boxes Then click Move e Graphically This is performed most easily in one of the 2D views To translate graphically click two points on the model The vector from the first point to the second defines the movement offset When moving graphically objects will only be moved parallel to the camera s view plane The steps for translating graphically are shown in Figure 6 2 71 Pathfinder User Manual AAA See LELT EL CILE Y a Figure 6 2 Graphically moving an object Objects can also be copied using the move tool To do so select the move tool select Copy Mode from the property panel and follow the same steps as a
155. timing options shown are the same as those shown when creating the elevator The pickup and discharge times are calculated from the timing parameters entered in the New Elevator dialog when the elevator is created 35 Pathfinder User Manual Floor Priority Floor 27 0 m Floor 24 0 m Floor 21 0 m Floor 18 0 m Floor 15 0 m 6 Floor 20m 7 Floor 9 0 m 8 Floor6 0m o loor3 0m 10 Fooro om E Mowe Up Move Down Sort top down Figure 3 35 Elevator Priority dialog Figure 3 36 Elevator Levels dialog Nominal load The nominal load is an estimate of the number of people that represent a full elevator load The default value is based on an estimate of how many occupants of default size diameter 45 58 cm would normally fill the elevator in steering mode Increasing or decreasing the nominal load will cause occupants sizes to be scaled up or down while they are on the elevator The scale factor default 1 0 is determined by a correlation to the density produced by the nominal load This makes it possible to adjust loading while still accounting for differences in individual occupants size In steering mode the geometry of the elevator can lead to reduced loads e g if the elevator is 2 8 persons wide Please verify that the resulting post simulation elevator loads match elevator manufacturer recommendations Connecting Disconnecting floors When an elevator is created by default it is connected to every
156. ting Profiles Pathfinder uses an occupant profile system to manage distributions of parameters across groups of occupants This system helps you control the occupant speed size and visual distributions To edit occupant profiles you can use the Edit Profiles dialog Figure 4 1 To open the Edit Profiles dialog on the Model menu click Edit Profiles m Default a Name Females lt 30 yr Female 30 50 yr o Females lt 30 yr gas Males 30 50 yr 3D Model BWom0001 CWom0001 CWom0018 CWom0019 WWom0010 Edit Males lt 30 yr Males gt 50 impaired Color paa Characteristics Movement Door Choice Output Advanced Priority Level 0 Speed Uniform 0 93 m s 1 55 m s Edit Shoulder Width Constant 45 58 cm Reset to Defaults Figure 4 1 The Edit Profiles dialog The Description box provides a place to enter descriptive text This value is not used outside the Edit Profiles dialog The 3D Model input provides a way to use a specific set of 3D human models for an occupant profile To select 3D models click Edit on the 3D Model row This will open the 3D Models dialog see Figure 4 2 When rendering occupants as 3D human models belonging to the current profile Pathfinder will choose one of the 3D models selected in the 3D Model dialog To enable or disable a particular model click the model s icon 50 Pathfinder User Manual E 3
157. tions controlling the drawing detail and ultimately speed in the 3D results including level of detail rendering hardware versus software rendering and vertex buffers One way to vastly increase speed while only somewhat sacrificing quality is to enable view dependent level of detail rendering This can be enabled by checking Enable Level of Detail under the View menu The idea behind this option is that objects far from the camera require less detail to portray the object realistically than for those close to the camera Another improvement for many modern graphics cards is to animate the occupants in hardware To do this select Animate Characters in Hardware under the View menu For these graphics cards this coupled with vertex buffers can vastly improve performance Some older graphics cards however will support it but will actually render slower when using it It is recommended that the user play with this option and observe the difference in frame rate shown at the bottom right in the status bar Recommended graphics cards include the Nvidia Geforce GTX especially and AMD Radeon HD series These will work best with the hardware animation option The last speed option available is using vertex buffers which is enabled by checking Enable Vertex Buffers under the view menu Hardware vertex buffers allow geometric data to be stored in video memory to reduce data that must be sent over the graphics bus from main memory which can increase re
158. top when they meet a specified criterion or reach another room The property panel for the one click stair tool as shown in Figure 3 26 provides four ways to terminate the stairs 28 Pathfinder User Manual x 10 0 m 3 0m Z 0 0 m Step count The stair will have this many steps Total rise The stair will be this tall in the Z direction Total run The stair will be this length in the XY plane Total length The hypotenuse of the stair will be this length Stair Width 121 92 cm Tread Rise 17 78cm Step Count 17 0 O Total Run 5 0 rr Doorl Width STAIR_WIDTH FE Tread Run 27 94 cm Total Rise 10 0 m Total tencia s 0m Door Width STAIR_WIDTH O Total Leng Figure 3 26 Property panel for the one point stair tool To create stairs in this manner select the one point stair tool ES The property panel will show If the tread rise is positive the stairs will extend up from the starting edge and if it is negative the stairs will go down Similarly if the tread run is positive the stairs will extend away from the room and if it is negative the stairs will extend in toward the room Another way to change these values is to hold CTRL on the keyboard to make the tread rise negative and hold SHIFT to make the run negative Now the Stairs can be created in one of the three following ways oftes Drina Rocedt Manual Entry Set the desired stair width tread rise tread run and termi
159. try has been imported In real scenarios rooms will not touch each other by infinitely thin walls as shown in Figure 3 20 To create a thick door to connect these rooms first select the door tool IG and then use one of the following three methods e Manual Entry Make sure Max Depth is greater than or equal to the distance between the edges the door will lie between Enter a point on one of the edges in the property panel If the coordinates specify a valid door location the Create Door button will enable Click this button and a door no larger than Max Width will be created e Single Click Make sure Max Depth is greater than or equal to the distance between the edges the door will lie between Then move the cursor over the desired door location in the 3D or 2D view A preview door will be displayed extending between the rooms if the cursor is on a valid edge The door displayed will lie either to the left or right of the hover point relative to the boundary edge depending on whether Max Width is positive or negative Single click to place the door e Click drag Move the cursor over the edge of one of the rooms and click drag along the corresponding edge on the second room While dragging a preview door will be displayed connecting the two edges When the mouse is released a door is created between the edges of the two rooms where the diagonal of the rectangular door connects the two specified points Creating a door in this manner ignores all
160. tween two pre existing rooms Stairs of this type will match the ends of the stairs exactly to the edges that they were drawn between which means that the tread 27 Pathfinder User Manual rise and run may or may not match the actual slope of the stairs In Pathfinder the geometric slope of stairs is unimportant in the simulation but the specified tread rise and run are To create stairs between edges first ensure that both the connecting rooms are visible If the rooms are on different floors at least one room will have to be manually set visible which can be done through the right click menu in the Navigation View Next select the two point stair tool ES The property panel will display the stair creation properties as shown in Figure 3 24 The stairs can now be created in one of the three following ways e Manual Entry Set the desired stair width and for each edge on which the stairs should be created enter a point If the points are valid a preview stair will be shown in the 2D or 3D view and the Create button will enable Click the Create button to add the stairs e Two click Set the desired stair width Move the cursor over the first edge and a preview line similar to a thin door will appear previewing the top or bottom of the stairs Single click to set the point Now move the cursor over the second edge Now a preview of the stairs will appear connecting the first edge to the second Single click on the second edge to create the s
161. ulate the effect of accelerating the camera Doing the same with the middle mouse button will cause the camera to move forward backward in the XY plane with changes along the Y mouse axis and turn left right with changes along the X mouse axis Pressing and dragging the right mouse button will move the camera along the Z axis in the same manner To exit Roam Mode press and release the middle mouse button again or press Esc on the keyboard At any time press Ctrl R to reset the camera view Displaying geometry input If a DXF FDS PyroSim or background image file has been imported in a Pathfinder simulation this geometry will be shown by default in the 3D results If not the navigation geometry used by the simulator will be displayed which only contains walking space doors stairs and exits These two geometry sets can be viewed in combination or individually through the Scene menu e Show Nav Mesh over Imported Geom this shows the navigation mesh and the imported geometry with the navigation mesh on top This is useful to see how the navigation mesh lines up with the imported model e Show Imported Geom over Nav Mesh like the first option this shows the navigation mesh and the imported geometry together but with the imported geometry on top This display is useful if the imported geometry is the most interesting geometry to display but the navigation mesh fills in some missing pieces from the imported geometry such as stairs or elevato
162. using this tool first select the tool from the 2D or 3D view Once the appropriate parameters have been chosen either enter a location on the floor of the desired room into the property panel or click this point in the 3D or 2D view If this point does not have any overhead obstructions within Max Head Height and the point is on a polygon with a slope less than Max Slope Pathfinder will march out from this point on the imported geometry s polygons until it finds the boundaries of the room It will also subtract overhead obstructions within Max Head Height from the resulting room An example of an extracted room is shown in Figure 3 43 Figure 3 43 A room extracted from a PyroSim file 43 Pathfinder User Manual When using the 3D floor extraction tool Pathfinder will include all imported geometry with faces even if hidden If an object must be excluded from floor extraction before performing extraction select the imported object and in the property panel deselect Include in room extraction Working with 2D DXFs 2D DXF data can be worked with in two ways it can be used as a guide for drawing rooms similarly to background images with the added benefit of being snapped to or it can have rooms automatically extracted from it similarly to 3D imported geometry To sketch the rooms using the built in drawing tools refer to the section Rooms on page 16 Automatic room extraction from 2D DXF data works similarly to extracting rooms from 3
163. vie on scenes with many occupants e Watch Movie when Finished specifies that the resulting movie should open in the default video player for the chosen video type when the movie is completed e Compressor shows which video codec is currently selected and allows the codec to be chosen and configured If Configure is pressed another dialog will show as in Figure 9 6 b This dialog will show a list of the codecs currently installed on the computer Some codecs allow certain properties such as the Quality Data Rate and Keyframe interval to be specified These properties control the resulting movie s quality file size and seeking performance how well a movie can be skipped around in the video player respectively Some codecs do not expose these properties through this dialog however To configure these codecs you must press the additional Configure button if it is enabled Movie Properties Select Video Compressor Compressor Uncompressed RGB Quality Cinepak Codec by Radius Xvid MPEG 4 Codec DV Video Encoder ffdshow Video Codec Configure ffdshow video encoder Specify target data rate Force keyframe every Video Size 640 x 480 pixels Use window size Default Quality 100 3 Xvid MPEG 4 Codec Speed 1 X Configure About Enable Level of Detail Watch movie when finished Cancel a b Figure 9 6 Movie option dialogs 4 Press OK to start making the movie While the movie is bein
164. wn Automatically creating floors When nothing is selected in the model the Floor Creation panel is shown as in Figure 3 1 This panel controls the automatic creation of floors and automatic sorting of new objects into floors Floor Creation Sorting New Egress Components Auto sort egress components Group gg Floor 0 0m J Automatically create floors Floor height 3 0 m Figure 3 1 Floor Creation panel e Auto sort egress components If this is checked navigation components are automatically sorted into the appropriate floor when created or modified if this is unchecked new navigation 13 Pathfinder User Manual components are placed in the group specified under New Egress Components and remain in this group until manually moved Automatically create floors If this is checked floors are automatically created as navigation components are created and modified Floor height This specifies the height at which new floors are automatically created Ifa navigation component is created or moved to a location that is at least this distance from the previous floor a new floor will be created at a multiple of this distance from the previous floor Group If Auto sort egress components is unchecked this drop down specifies the group floor for new navigation components The following scenario demonstrates how objects are organized when auto sort and auto floor creation are enabled organization of the model is shown in Figur
165. y exist To create the obstruction select the Add a Polygonal Room tool or the Add a Rectangular Room tool and draw the shape and location of the obstructed area This will subtract the area from the old room and create a new room Next delete the new room A hole is left in the old room in the shape of the obstruction This process is shown in Figure 3 16 22 Pathfinder User Manual Peper Pos oom Wy zeman e PST C Seen rn Cancel Foirgon Jag By Pat titie Jae Wen Soudan Es Fror non Jenan DO en ve rea w 7 Add Port gt Profies d a a o 2 a a i Dev E 7iwebkkaco B 7iwekk aao E 7iwekk aao c o d Figure 3 16 Creating an obstruction Thick walls The wall tool 10 is used to make rectangular obstructions in existing geometry To use this tool enter the desired wall width in the property panel and click or click drag the two points the wall is to pass through Holding the shift key will switch between alignment left and right of the defining line This tool is shown in Figure 3 17 2 Plane o o m Select Thickness o1 m 3 ss a a B T Figure 3 17 Subtracting walls 23 Pathfinder User Manual NOTE The thick wall tool is not as robust as the thin wall tool It operates by subtracting area from any room that lies in its specified Z plane whereas the thin wall tool will follow the slope of multiple rooms to connect two points Doors In P

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