Pathfinder 2024.1.0605

What's New

This version of Pathfinder uses version 21.0.2+13 of the OpenJDK Java VM.

Pathfinder 2024.1 provides improved support for Pedestrian Movement scenarios and Productivity Improvments for large model editing.

Improved Navigation

Pathfinder 2024.1 focuses on improving Occupant behavior when navigating narrow geometry. These improvements are focused on two main areas:

Aisle Merging

Many of our users have written to us about public transport models and the struggles they have getting their Occupants to exit their models in realistic manners. We focused on this problem in Pathfinder 2024.1 and improved Occupant aisle merging behavior, which was the main cause for these issues.

In prior versions of Pathfinder, Occupants merging in to an aisle would yield to Occupants already in the aisle, leading to unrealistic delays in exiting and an unpredictable distribution of exit times among Occupants.

Pathfinder 2024.1 improves this behavior by causing Occupants in sides rooms of aisles to take a more aggressive priority when merging. Concurrently, Occupants already in the aisle will yield priority to those Occupants. These leads to more realistic exit time distributions, where Occupants nearest to exits will exit quickest, while Occupants furthest from the exits will exit slowest.

Narrow Doors

Continuing the improvements made for public transport models and aisle merging, we focused on improving Occupant navigation of narrow doors in congested scenarios. Occupants that are navigating narrow doors (where the Reduce diameter to move through narrow geometry parameter takes effect) will now move much better in scenarios where they will encounter Occupants on the other side of the door.

Productivity Improvements for Large Model Editing

Model sizes continue to increase in both size and complexity. This increases the number of objects that need to be managed, renamed, edited and selected to complete projects. The 2024.1 releases of all of our products include improvements to help manage this increase in model complexity.

Improved Undo / Redo

2024.1 allows for the refinement of object selection by adding selection changes to undo/redo. By default, using Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y now undo or redo the last action taken when editing your model. In addition, all undo/redo actions are now visible in a dropdown undo/redo history.

Group Object Tagging

Larger models often have specialized groups that need specific action. By using Tags, you can now create object tree selection groups that can be used and reused to help keep models clean.

Template-based Renaming

After many user requests, 2024.1 provides an improved process for renaming multiple selected objects!

This feature is available in the updated Rename dialog. There is now a new Rename with Template option, which exposes a number of template variables that can be used to rename individual objects in a group of selected objects.

This feature improves the workflow for users who have a large number of objects to rename and want to provide descriptive names, without individually renaming every object.

Changes since Pathfinder 2023.3.1206:

Aisle Merging

• Improved merging into narrow aisles, such as in rail cars and airplanes. Occupants will now move into narrow aisles more aggressively.

Narrow Doors

• Improved occupants' ability to navigate narrow geometry.

Elevators

• Improved which floors SCAN elevators will service first when they are not carrying occupants. They now service the furthest floor agnostic of call direction.
• Improved door closing for elevators. The doors will close on a delay based on last occupant entered or exited, rather than only the last occupant entered.

Improved Undo/Redo

• Changes to selection are now included in Undo and Redo history.
• Added new shortcuts "Ctrl-Shift-Z" and "Ctrl-Shift-Y" to undo/redo the next major non-selection action.
• Undo and Redo history can now be traversed via a dropdown in the main toolbar or the Edit menu.
• Added a preference to control the maximum length of Undo and Redo history and increased default to 50.

Template-based Renaming

• Added the ability to batch rename objects.
• Added the ability to change the created occupant group name when adding occupants to a region or adding occupants to a room.

Group Object Tagging

• Added the ability to tag related objects to quickly find them later. This includes the ability to list tagged objects in a floating window.
• Added the ability to list referencing objects in a floating window.

Other Improvements

• Improved license activation dialog usability.
• Reduced time to start a simulation when there are many dynamic obstacles.
• Reduced the time to validate some complex models when starting a simulation.
• The File Open Warnings dialog no longer blocks files from finishing loading until OK is pressed.
• Simulations that have been started but take a long time to prepare can now be manually cancelled before the actual simulation starts.
• Reduced the time to copy/transform many objects under the Floors group when Auto sort egress components is enabled.
• Added 'Select Non-Group Descendants' action to select deepest child objects of a selection
• Added "All" display in filter HyperLinks when all options are selected.
• Added tooltips to the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog table to help describe actions.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed random freezes that would lock up the user interface, requiring forced closure.
• Fixed issues with setting an occupant's max speed to 0 to force the occupant to remain stationary.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using the transform tools (e.g. rotate, move, mirror).
• Fixed a bug where a file might not be remembered in the Recent Files menu if saved while quitting.
• Fixed a bug where rooms or doors might disappear from view or flicker, such as when using the door tool.
• Fixed a bug where the Undo and Redo actions had inconsistent names in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.
• Fixed a bug when importing an avatar, where the link to the import directory did nothing when clicked.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using a snapshot file to resume a simulation.
• Fixed a bug that caused visual materials imported from DWG files using the 'Specular (Basic)' workflow to use an inverted shininess value.
• Fixed a crash that could occur after undoing the deletion of a vehicle shape and selecting an affected occupant.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the simulation to crash during a door queue position calculation.
• Fixed a bug where pasting a group of movement group templates would place the pasted objects in the wrong part of the tree view.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when editing a distribution in the Behavior distribution dialog.
• Fixed a bug that caused link buttons to display a text cursor.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash on startup when using a floating license.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when attempting to run models with disconnected or overlapping geometry.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when using the Assist Occupants behavior.
• Fixed a memory leak that occurred when using FDS output data integration.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when opening the Debug window while a simulation is running.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the simulation to crash during an elevator transport batch calculation.
• Fixed a simulation error that could occur when interpersonal distance reporting is enabled and the model has no occupants within reference distance of each other.
• Fixed a bug that would cause fields to avoid converting values when using compatible units.
• Fixed a bug that would incorrectly parse values with invalid characters embedded in them.
• Fixed a crash that was caused by an occupant having an invalid displayLoc.
• Fixed a bug where certain vehicle avatars might appear incorrect after viewing the first time.
• Fixed a bug where viewing certain vehicle avatars might cause a crash.
• Fixed a bug that caused IFC imports to abort when encountering an invalid material index.
• Fixed a bug where setting an occupant's maximum speed to zero might not stop the occupant from moving.

Results

Viewing Multiple FDS Quantities

• Multiple FDS Results with different quantities can now be activated simultaneously.
• Added a preference to disable activating multiple FDS Results with different quantities.
• Added a preference to disable activating multiple FDS Results with potentially overlapping geometry.

Other Improvements

• Allow usage of newer graphics features on VMs using GLon12.
• Add filename to Results Plot dialog title.
• Added a validation for time interval in saving screenshot dialog.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that displayed values above a colorbar's maximum range and caused a strange rounding of colorbar values.
• Fixed a bug where it might take a very long time to close Pathfinder results that include many triggers.
• Fixed a bug where certain vehicle avatars might appear incorrect after viewing the first time.
• Fixed a bug where viewing certain vehicle avatars might cause a crash.