Ventus 2024.1.0605

What's New

This version of Ventus is designed for CONTAM version 3.4.0.1 and uses version 21.0.2+13 of the OpenJDK Java VM.

Transient Simulation

With Ventus 2024.1, we are continuing to improve workflow and add support for additional CONTAM features. This release, we have added support for Transient Simulations.

With Transient Simulation support, you can also easily scroll through the timeline of your simulation and visualize the results at any timestep.

Zone Results Data

Alongside the Results view added for Transient Simulation, Ventus 2024.1 adds a Zone Results panel to display results data from Zones. This new table shows data from a combination of the Node Flows and Node Concentrations result sets.

You can read more about this table and its features in the Documentation.

Contaminant Modeling

Ventus 2024.1 also provides the following initial support for CONTAM Contaminant Modeling.

Species

Species in Ventus / CONTAM define the properties of a contaminant that will be transported in your model. Ventus 2024.1 adds support for simple definitions of Species in the new Edit Species dialog.

Source / Sink Elements

Sources and Sinks in Ventus / Contam provide the ability to inject / remove contaminant Species from your model. Ventus 2024.1 now supports these elements in the new Edit Source/Sink Elements dialog.

Similar to how Flow Elements and Flow Paths work, you can now define Source/Sink Elements in this new dialog and use those definitions to place individual Sources and Sinks in Zones of your simulation. You can read more about Sources and Sinks in Ventus in the Documentation.

Improved Air Handling

Previous versions of Ventus supported a "Global" Air Handling system. Ventus 2024.1 expands this feature to support user definition of additional Simple Air Handling Systems in the new Edit Air Handling Systems dialog.

User defined Air Handling Systems can be used to separate AHS zone points in to individual systems, controlling where the gases moved by that system are transported. You can read more about this feature in the Documentation.

Scheduling

Ventus 2024.1 adds support for limited usage of CONTAM schedules. Schedules can now be used to control Zone Temperatures and Source/Sink multipliers over the course of the simulation.

You can read more about the new Schedule editors in the Zone Documentation and Source/Sink Elements Documentation.

Future Development

We are continuing active development of Contaminant Modeling support in Ventus. If you have any feedback or suggestions for this new feature, please let us know by creating a new Support Ticket.

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.

NOTE: The images below show the UI from different products, however all products contain these improvements.

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 Ventus 2023.2.1312:

Transient Simulation

• Added support for running transient simulations.
• 3D Path Data results can now be animated over time for transient simulations.
• Added a Time column to Results tables.

Zone Results Data

• Added a Zone Data tab in the Results Panel to view temperature, pressure, density, and contaminant concentrations in all zones.
• The .NCR Contaminant Results file is now made available if present.

Contaminant Modeling

• Added support for defining Simple Air Handling Systems.
• Added support for defining CONTAM Species/Contaminants.
• Added support for placing Contaminant Sources and Sinks.
• Zone temperature can now be defined on a schedule.

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.

Other Improvements

• Improved license activation dialog usability.
• Added legend icons to flow path results values when results vectors are selected.
• Zone colors in Ventus will now default to light purple floors with light gray walls instead of being randomly assigned.
• Added a [0.0, 360.0] angle validation for wind profile function.
• Wind profile curve type will no longer quietly change its type to linear when too few control points are specified.
• Added a [0.0, 360.0] angle periodic validation for wind profile function.
• Added tooltips to the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog table to help describe actions.
• The Flow Path ribbon editor now has a shortcut to edit the corresponding Flow Element.
• Drawing tools for Flow Paths, Walls, and AHS Points are now disabled until a Zone has been drawn.

Bug Fixes

• 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 that could cause the software to crash when running simulations including flow paths with variable wind pressure.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when editing a value in Wind Profile table and loading series.
• Fixed a crash in the wind profile dialog that could occur when a wind profile had less than two table entries.
• Fixed an issue with the trigonometric curve fit option for wind profiles that allowed it to be selectable while disabled.
• Fixed a bug where the Undo and Redo actions had inconsistent names in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.
• Fixed a crash caused by index out of bounds when editing wind profile function.
• Fixed the contrast for wall edge and flow path connection colors when changing the color scheme.
• Fixed a bug that caused visual materials imported from DWG files using the 'Specular (Basic)' workflow to use an inverted shininess value.
• Fixed a bug where the flow path area vis is not updated when another flow path added.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when loading results because sqlite3 libraries could not be loaded using the system temporary folder.
• Fixed a bug where material libraries were not able to save in Ventus.
• Fixed a bug that would cause the Ambient Temperature and Wind Direction dialogs to crush under low resolutions or high display scaling.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when create a one-point flow path with wall coverage turned on.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when importing a flow element library.
• Fixed a bug that would cause the Wind Profile table entries disappear when using Cubic Fit.
• Fixed a bug that prevented users from deselecting objects when using CTRL + click for selection.
• Fixed a bug that would inform the user that results were out of date when only the visibility of objects had changed.
• 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 Ventus to crash when copying zones.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when moving table entries in Wind Profile dialog.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when running the simulation or exporting a PRJ file.
• 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 bug that prevented the uninstaller from removing the lib/textures folder when empty.
• Fixed a bug that caused IFC imports to abort when encountering an invalid material index.