403 Poyntz Ave.

, Suite B
Manhattan, KS 66502, USA
Phone: +1-785-770-8511
Email: [email protected]
Web: https://www.thunderheadeng.com

Pathfinder User Manual

Version: 2021-3
Last Modified: 2021-09-14
Table of Contents
Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1. Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2. Download and Install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3. Graphical User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4. Model Representation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5. Simulation Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.6. System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7. Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.8. Contact Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2. Pathfinder Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1. Navigation View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2. 3D and 2D Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3. View Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4. Model Organization with Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.5. Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.6. Object Sets and Discrete Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3. Creating Movement Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1. Floors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2. Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3. Obstructions/Holes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.4. Doors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.5. Stairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6. Ramps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.7. Escalators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.8. Moving Walkways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.9. Elevators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.10. Exits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4. Importing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.1. Importing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.2. Importing CAD Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.3. Working with Imported Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.4. Importing FDS Output Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
 4.5. Importing Custom Avatars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5. Creating Occupants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.1. Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.2. Vehicle Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.3. Behaviors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.4. Generating Occupants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
5.5. Redistributing Profiles and Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.6. Randomizing Occupants' Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
5.7. Reducing Population. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
6. Queues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.1. Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.2. Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
6.3. Path Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
7. Assisted Evacuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
7.1. Assistance Process Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
7.2. Preparing Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
7.3. Preparing Assistants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
7.4. Preparing Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
8. Occupant Grouping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
8.1. Grouped Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
8.2. Movement Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.3. Movement Group Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.4. Adding Grouped Occupants from Occupant Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
9. Attractors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.1. Attractor Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.2. Interrupted Waiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.3. Seeking vs. Waiting Interruption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
9.4. Creating Attractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
9.5. Attractor Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
9.6. Attractor Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
10. Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
10.1. Creating a View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
10.2. Recalling a View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
10.3. Editing a View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
10.4. Views in the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
10.5. Camera Tours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
11. Editing and Copying Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
 11.1. Transforming and Copying Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
11.2. Manipulating Objects with Handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
11.3. Enabling and Disabling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
12. Model Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
12.1. Measurement Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
12.2. Measuring Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
13. Simulating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
13.1. Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
13.2. Starting and Managing a Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
13.3. Stopping and Resuming a Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
14. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
14.1. Summary Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
14.2. Door History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
14.3. Room History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
14.4. Measurement Regions Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
14.5. Occupant Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
14.6. Interpersonal Distance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
14.7. Occupants Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
14.8. Occupant History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
14.9. Groups Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
14.10. Attractors History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
14.11. 3D Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
15. Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
15.1. Occupants cannot reach their goals, or they are getting stuck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
15.2. Warnings and errors in the navigation tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
15.3. Find objects related to a specific object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
15.4. System memory issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
15.5. Issues with custom avatars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
15.6. Video display problems and crashes on startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
15.7. Additional support resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Appendix A: Pre-defined Speed Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
A.1. Profiles from the IMO’s Revised Guidelines for Passenger Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
A.2. Profiles from Fruin’s Pedestrian Planning and Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Appendix B: BEA File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
B.1. MESH Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
B.2. ANIMATIONS Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
 Pathfinder - User Manual

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.

All other product or company names that are mentioned in this publication are tradenames,
trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Throughout this document, the mention of computer hardware or commercial software does not
constitute endorsement by Thunderhead Engineering, nor does it indicate that the products are
necessarily those best suited for the intended purpose.

3 Disclaimer
Pathfinder - User Manual

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 the software and
incorporate more useful features. The Pathfinder support forum can be found at
www.thunderheadeng.com/pathfinder/support/.

Acknowledgements 4
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Chapter 1. Getting Started

1.1. 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.

1.2. Download and Install

You can download the current version, sign up for a free trial, and purchase the software from the
Pathfinder Support Page. This page also provides instructions for installation and activation.
Troubleshooting info can be found on the Pathfinder Answers page. There is no functional
difference between the trial version of Pathfinder and the full version, the only limitation is the
trial license duration.

When installing Pathfinder, the installer will either upgrade an existing version or install
Pathfinder to a new location, this behavior is based on the version. In the case of minor updates
(e.g. upgrading from Pathfinder 2020.1 to Pathfinder 2020.3), the installer will remove the older
version and replace it with the new version. When installing a major update (e.g. Pathfinder 2019
to Pathfinder 2020), the older version will not be modified and the newer version will be installed
to a different folder.

Administrator privileges are required to install Pathfinder. This is necessary because the installer
adds processes to the operating system for license management.

Pathfinder will regularly check for and notify the user of available updates to the software when
configured to do so. By default, Pathfinder will check for updates on startup and display the
relevant information in the Check For Updates dialog when one is available.

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Figure 1. The Check For Updates dialog.

Users can also access this dialog by navigating to Help→Check For Updates

The dialog can be disabled on startup by unchecking Check for newer version on startup. Users
can also elect to skip the current update by clicking the Skip Update button, which will prevent
update notifications until a new version is released beyond the latest version.

1.3. 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 2. 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.

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Figure 2. An example of the graphical user interface. Model of the Theater de Vest created by Van
Hooft Adviesburo.

Pathfinder also includes a second program designed specifically for high-performance

visualization of 3D time history. The 3D Results program is shown in Figure 3. 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.

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Figure 3. An example of the 3D Results view, showing occupants gathering at a refuge area before
proceeding to elevators.

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 4. This plot shows the
number of occupants in the refuge area and the total number of occupants in the building.

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Figure 4. An example time history graph

1.4. Model Representation

The movement environment is a 3D triangulated mesh (Figure 5), 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 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.

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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.

Figure 5. 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 cylinder on the movement mesh and movement uses an agent-based
technique called inverse steering. Each occupant calculates movements independently.

1.5. 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 2019). In SFPE mode, occupants
make no attempt to avoid one another and can 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

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Technical Reference, n.d.).

1.6. System Requirements

System requirements depend on the type of model being analyzed. To illustrate this, two different
models (Table 1) were evaluated using a laptop running 64-bit Windows 8 Pro with an Intel Core
i7 2.60 GHz processor, 8 GB of RAM, and NVIDIA NVS 5200M graphics card. The first model (Figure
6) had a single room with 50,000 occupants and did not include any imported geometry. The
second model (Figure 7) imported a relatively complex Revit model to create the Pathfinder model
and had 3,000 people.

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.

The model with 50,000 people (Figure 6) solved in about 18 minutes, while the Revit model with
3,000 people (Figure 7) took about 5 minutes. The graphical display performance for the model
with 50,000 people was responsive at 15 frames/sec, while the 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.

Figure 6. Model with 50,000 people Figure 7. Revit import model with 3,000 people

Table 1. Comparison of performance for the two models

Parameter Model

People Revit Import

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Parameter Model

Number of occupants 50,000 3,000

Number navigation triangles 4 21,480

Number Revit face primitives 0 1,300,000

CPU solution time (s) 1090 297

Navigation mesh display rate ~15 ~70

(fps)

Imported geom display rate n/a ~5

(fps)

The minimum requirements to run Pathfinder include:

• 32 or 64-bit Windows 7 or higher

• A processor the performance of an Intel i5

• 4 GB of RAM

• Graphics support for OpenGL 1.2

For a balanced performance we recommend:

• 64-bit Windows 7 or higher

• Intel i7-3770 (3.4 GHz, 4 Cores) processor

• 8 GB of RAM

• Graphics support for OpenGL 3.2 with an installed graphics card for large Revit models.

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 and graphics card performance can be found at: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ and
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/.

1.7. Configuration Files

Pathfinder stores data related to user preferences in a file called Pathfinder.props. By default, this
file can be found in one of:

%APPDATA%\Pathfinder\Pathfinder.props
%PROGRAMDATA%\Pathfinder\Pathfinder.props

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If at least one of these files exists, Pathfinder will load the user preferences. If both files exist,
Pathfinder will load user preferences from both files, giving preference to the file located in the
APPDATA folder. This way the preference file located in the PROGRAMDATA folder can be shared among
multiple machines, and the file located in the APPDATA folder on each machine overrides the
shared settings.

The PROPS file is stored in a plaintext format, and can be viewed or edited with any conventional
text editor. While it is not recommended to edit the file directly, some troubleshooting techniques
may involve deleting the PROPS file so that a new one can be created from scratch by Pathfinder.

1.8. Contact Us
Thunderhead Engineering
403 Poyntz Avenue, Suite B
Manhattan, KS 66502-6081
USA

Sales Information: [email protected]

Product Support: [email protected]
Phone and Fax: +1.785.770.8511

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Chapter 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.

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.

3D View
This view shows a 3D representation of the current model. The model can be explored and
modified using various tools.

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.

2.1. Navigation View

The Navigation View helps you quickly find objects and data that are not always easily accessible
from the 3D and 2D views.

The Navigation View is arranged in the following groups:

Views
This group contains user-defined camera positions.

Imported Geometry
This group stores items that were imported from an image or an IFC, FDS, PyroSim, or other
CAD model. These objects do not affect the simulation but are carried through to help with
results analysis. They can also be used to generate model elements as described in Section 4.3.

Profiles
This group contains the occupant profiles that have been created using the Edit Profiles
dialog.

Vehicle Shapes
This group contains occupant shapes defined as polygons.

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Assisted Evacuation Teams

This group contains user-defined teams of assistants and clients in an assisted evacuation
scenario.

Behaviors
This group contains user-defined scripts that tell occupants how to behave.

Occupant Sources
This group stores occupant sources, which are defined either by area, room, or door, and can
generate occupants during the simulation.

Occupants
This group contains every occupant in the model. If 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.

Movement Groups
This group stores occupants grouped into movement groups. Members of a movement group
will stay together during the simulation.

Movement Group Templates

This group contains templates that can be used to automatically create large number of
movement groups. Templates can also be used for generating movement groups during the
simulation.

Elevators
This group contains evacuation elevators in the model.

Measurement Regions
This group contains regions defined by area, within which velocity and density measurements
will be taken.

Floors
This 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 (Figure 8).

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Figure 8. Navigation View with the Floors group expanded.

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).

The Floor selection box above the Navigation View panel (see the top of Figure 8) can be used to
manage floors. Any time a room, stair, ramp, or 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

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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).

2.2. 3D and 2D Views

The 3D and 2D views as shown in Figure 9 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, , and the 2D view is entered by selecting one of the orthographic
cameras, , , or .

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 drawing 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.

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Figure 9. 3D and 2D views

2.2.1. Navigating the 3D View

Several tools are provided for navigating through the model in the 3D view, including orbit, roam,
pan, and zoom tools.

The main navigation tool for the 3D view is the Orbit tool, .

• 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.

• 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. It has a higher learning curve but is the most flexible viewing tool
because it allows the camera to be placed anywhere in the model. This tool can work in three
different modes. In the first two modes, the movement speed of the camera can be changed by
holding CTRL and spinning the mouse wheel up or down. Spin it up to increase the speed and

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down to decrease the speed.

Mouse+Keyboard Mode
Click and drag the left mouse button to look around. The camera will remain stationary.
Dragging the mouse up will make the camera look up, dragging it down will look down, 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 plane, and holding ALT while dragging will
make the camera move up and down along the Z axis.

WSAD Mode
This mode mimics the controls in video games. Click and drag to look around as in the previous
mode. Press the W key to move forward along the viewing direction, S to move backward, A to
move to the left, and D to move to the right. 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 the keys doubles the speed.

Mouse-only Mode
This mode smoothly animates the camera to any location using only the mouse. To do so, press
and release the middle mouse button. The cursor will disappear, and the tool will enter Mouse-
only Mode. In this mode, moving the mouse will look around as in the other modes except that
the mouse button doesn’t have to be pressed. 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 simulate 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.

NOTE The WSAD keys may also be used in this mode to move the camera.

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, . 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.

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2.2.2. 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.

2.2.3. Resetting the view

At any time, the camera can be reset by pressing CTRL+R on the keyboard, or selecting Reset All
tool, . 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 the 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.

2.2.4. Filling the view

Very similar to resetting the camera, the view can be fit by pressing F on the keyboard or selecting
the Fill View tool, . 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.

2.2.5. 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:

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.

Sticky Mode
Double-click a drawing tool’s button 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

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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 ESC, 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.

• Draw the object graphically using the mouse and keyboard.

• 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 Chapter 3.

2.3. 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.

2.3.1. Render Options

In the toolbar above the properties window in the 2D and 3D views, there are a number of buttons
as shown in Figure 10 that control how geometry is rendered.

Figure 10. Render options

From left to right, the buttons are:

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.

Solid Rendering
Displays imported 3D geometry filled in. This is selected by default.

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Show Materials
Shows materials applied to the faces of imported 3D geometry. This is selected by default.

Show Object Outlines

Shows the outlines of 3D imported geometry. This is similar to showing the wireframe and
solid versions at the same time.

Smooth Lighting
Uses a more realistic shading model to show all geometry. This may be a little slower to render
on older graphics cards.

Show Navigation Geometry

This toggles the visibility of all the navigation geometry. It does not affect anything else
(including imported geometry and occupants).

Show Imported Geometry

This toggles the visibility of all imported 3D geometry.

Show Occupants
This toggles the visibility of occupants.

Show Behaviors
This toggles the visibility of behavior objects, such as waypoints.

Show Occupant Sources

This toggles the visibility of occupant sources.

Show Measurement Regions

This toggles the visibility of measurement regions.

Show View Objects

This toggles the visibility of view objects.

Show Attractors
Toggles the visibility of attractor objects.

2.3.2. Occupant Display

Occupants can be displayed using a number of options. They can be viewed as simple shapes,
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 Occupant Display submenu.

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When occupants are not viewed as people, they can also be colored in several ways, available
under View→Occupant Color:

Default
If an occupant has an individually-set color, the occupant is colored with this; otherwise, the
occupant’s profile color is used.

By Movement Group
If the occupant is part of a movement group, this colors all the occupants in their group the
same color. The group color is set in the properties panel for the selected movement group. If
the occupant is not in a movement group, their default color is used.

By Movement Group Template

If the occupant is part of a movement group that was created from a movement group
template, this option colors the occupant using the color of the movement group template;
otherwise, their default color is used.

By Behavior
Colors the occupant using the color specified in the property panel of the occupant’s behavior.

By Profile
Colors the occupant using the occupant’s profile color, even if the occupant has an individually
set color.

2.3.3. Coloring Rooms

Rooms can be colored in a variety of ways. All coloring options are available under the View
menu and Color Rooms submenu. Rooms can be colored by the following options:

Default
Displays each room with a unique color.

By Occupant Density
Colors the room with a color scale based on the occupant density of the room, defined as
number_of_occupants/room_area. Red indicates high density and blue indicates low density.

Mixed
Rooms are colored by occupant density if they contain agents; otherwise, they are colored with
their unique colors.

By Room Type
Rooms are colored according to the type of room.

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• Indicates a normal room

• Indicates a Refuge Area

2.3.4. 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.

2.4. 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 Views, Imported Geometry, Profiles,
Vehicle Shapes, Assisted Evacuation Teams, Behaviors, Occupant Sources, Occupants,
Movement Groups, Movement Group Templates, Elevators, Measurement Regions, and
Floors as shown in Figure 11. Sub-groups can be created to further organize the model as
discussed in the following sections.

Figure 11. Predefined groups

2.4.1. Creating sub-groups

Sub-groups can be created under all groups (floors are discussed in Section 3.1.) Groups can also
be created in other sub-groups.

To create a new group:

1. Right click the desired parent group in the navigation view

2. Select New Group or select New Group from the Model menu.

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3. 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.

4. Click "OK" to create the new group.

2.4.2. Changing groups

An object can be moved from one group to another at any time.

To change an object’s group:

1. Drag the object to the desired group in the Navigation View or right click the object and select
Change Group.

2. 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.

3. Select "OK" to change the group.

2.5. Keyboard Shortcuts

By default, Pathfinder uses a variety of keyboard shortcuts that are standard to Windows and Java
applications. To accelerate model creation, shortcuts can be added or changed to in a variety of
ways.

Some keyboard shortcuts are used by Java UI components. If a shortcut does not result in the
expected behavior, it may be in direct conflict with a preexisting Java shortcut. It is best practice
to avoid these conflicts (Default Swing key bindings (IBM n.d.)).

2.5.1. Keyboard Shortcut Editor

The Keyboard Shortcut Editor Window can be found in the File→Preferences dialog and clicking
Edit Actions and tools can are bound to a combination of modifier keys (ALT, CTRL, SHIFT, etc.)
and other key presses.

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Figure 12. Keyboard Shortcuts Dialog

The dialog is split into sections similar to those used in the Pathfinder toolbar menus. There are
additional tabs for shortcuts related to tool activation, object selection, and context sensitive
actions.

To change a shortcut, click on cell in the Key Press column and a window launches (Figure 13)
with four different options.

Type an input
Input the desired keybinding to map it to the action.

Clear
Remove the current keybinding from the action.

Reset
Assign the default keybinding to the action.

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Cancel
Exit the editor window without making any changes.

Figure 13. Keyboard Shortcuts Listener

2.6. Object Sets and Discrete Distributions

There are times when a set of objects might need to be selected or a distribution of discrete items
specified. Pathfinder provides two dialogs that can be used to do so.

2.6.1. Object Sets

When specifying a set of items, such as the doors an occupant is allowed to use, the Figure 14 is
shown.

Figure 14. Set Chooser Dialog

The list in this dialog shows the items in the model that can be chosen. Click the checkbox next to
the item in the list to select the item. Alternately, click the checkbox in the header of this list to
select or deselect all items currently displayed in the list.

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Click OK to commit the selected items.

Sometimes, the list of items might be quite long, making it difficult to quicky find the desired
items. There are several ways to limit the displayed items, however. At the top of the dialog is a
search field. Typing in this field will limit the list of items to only those that partially contain the
entered text. To match the name of an object exactly, surround the text with quotes. For example
"Door01" will show only the doors that have exactly the name, Door01. This search field also allows
wildcards including the following:

?
Matches any single character

*
Matches any number of characters

For example, typing Door?1 would find objects with the following names: Door01, Door51a, Exit
Door91 (south), etc. It would not, however, find the following: Door001, Door9221, etc. Typing Door*1,
however, would find those.

Another way to limit the displayed item is to check the box next to Show only selected rows. This
will only show items that have already been selected. By default, when the Set Chooser dialog
opens, if there are selected items in a long list, Show only selected rows will be automatically
selected so it’s easy to see the current selection.

When the list of items has been filtered either by the search field or Show only
NOTE selected rows, the number of displayed items is shown under the list. Clicking
this label will reset the filters so that all items are displayed.

The following additional options are also available:

Clear
Clicking this button will clear the selection, including both displayed and hidden rows.

Show group labels

If checked, the group labels for each item is shown in the list. For example, "Door01" might
become "Floor 0.0 m→Door01".

2.6.2. Discrete Distributions

Pathfinder also allows discrete distributions of objects in certains cases. For example, the Change
Behavior action allows occupants to change their behavior by choosing a random behavior from a
discrete distribution. Occupants might have a 30% chance of choosing Behavior01 and 70% chance of

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choosing Behavior02. The Figure 15 allows these distributions to be specified.

Figure 15. Discrete Distribution Dialog

In this dialog, the probability of choosing a value can be entered into the first column. The second
column shows the name of each available item. The sum of the values in first column must add to
100%.

As in the Set Chooser dialog described above, the displayed items can be filtered either by typing
text into the search field at the top of the dialog or by clicking Display only non-zero rows, which
only shows rows that have non-zero probabilities. In addition, Show group labels can be checked
to show the names of the groups next to the item names in the list, such as
"BehaviorGroup01→Behavior01".

The distribution dialog has some additional actions that can be used to clear values or distribute
probabilities evenly among several items.

To set the probability of multiple items to 0.0%, click the Clear button and choose from one of the
following options in the popup menu:

Clear selected rows

Clears the values for all highlighted rows.

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Clear displayed rows

Clears the values for all rows currently in the list but not hidden rows.

Clear all rows

Clears the values for all rows, including hidden rows that do not match the current search
field.

To distribute probability evenly across multiple rows, click the Distribute Evenly button and
choose one of the following option in the popup menu:

Distribute remaining X% to selected rows

This is only available if the current total distribution is less than 100%. It will distribute all
remaining values to those currently highlighted in the list. For instance, if the current total
distribution is 85%, and there are 3 highlighted items in the list, this action will add (100 - 85)/3
= 5% to each selected item’s current probability, ensuring that the end total distribution is 100%.

Distribute remaining X% to displayed rows

Distributes the remaining values evenly across all displayed rows.

Distribute 100% to selected rows

Clears all rows (including hidden rows) and then evenly distributes 100% across only those that
are highlighted.

Distribute 100% to displayed rows

Clears all rows (including hidden rows) and then evenly distributes 100% across those currently
displayed in the list.

Distribute 100% to all rows

Clears all rows (including hidden rows) and then evenly distributes 100% across all rows,
including hidden rows.

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Chapter 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 bounded 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.

When working with imported files, such as IFC, DWG, or FBX, Pathfinder provides
tools that can simplify the creation of the movement space. In some cases, such as
NOTE
with IFC files, Pathfinder can even create most or all of the movement space
automatically, see Section 4.3.

3.1. 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.

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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
drawn.

3.1.1. Automatically Creating Floors

When nothing is selected in the model, the Floor Creation panel is shown, as in Figure 16. This
panel controls the automatic creation of floors and automatic sorting of new objects into floors.

Figure 16. Floor Creation Panel

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 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. If a 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 Figure 17):

1. A new 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".

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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.

8. A new floor, "Floor 6.0 m" is auto-created, and "Room03" is auto-placed in it.

Figure 17. 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.

3.1.1.1. Using Auto-sort with an Existing Model

Automatic floors can be created and components sorted into the floors by performing the
following:

1. Open the model.

2. Clear the selection so that the Floor Creation panel is visible (Figure 16).

3. Ensure that the desired creation/sorting options are enabled and that the correct floor height
for the model is set.

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.

This will not delete any existing floors. If there are undesired existing floors, first
NOTE move the navigation components out of them to another floor that will be kept,
delete the undesired floors, and then perform Sort into Floors.

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3.1.2. Manually creating floors

Floors can also be created manually at any time.

1. Click on the floor drop-down box above the Navigation View, and select <Add New> as shown
in Figure 18. A dialog will open asking for the floor location.

2. Enter the Z plane location (Figure 19) 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.

There are two other options in this dialog:

Set as active floor

The floor is set to be the active floor in the model after being created.

Resort existing egress components into new floor

All existing components that belong in the new floor will be moved to it.

By default, the name of the floor is Floor [stem 332cc365a4987aacce0ead01b8bdcc0b] where

[stem 332cc365a4987aacce0ead01b8bdcc0b] is the working plane of the floor.

Manually Adding a New Floor

Figure 19. Floor Location Z plane

Figure 18. Adding a new floor

3.1.3. Changing the Active Floor

To change the active floor, click the floor drop-down box as shown in Figure 18, 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:

• The floor, all objects in the floor group, and all occupants on the floor are set visible.

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• All other floors, sub-objects of other floors, and occupants on those floors are set hidden.

• The working plane of the room and wall subtraction tools is set to the working plane of the
floor.

• A clipping filter is applied to imported geometry so that only geometry within the Z clipping
planes of the active floor is visible.

3.1.4. Showing All Floors

To show all floors click the floor drop-down box as shown in Figure 18, and click <Show All>.

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.

3.1.5. Floor Properties

To edit a floor’s properties, first select the desired floor. The property panel as shown in Figure 20
will appear, showing the floor’s name, its Working Z location, and the Z clipping planes (Z Min
Filter and Z Max Filter) 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. Refuge Area and Speed Modifier are discussed
in Section Room properties.

Figure 20. Floor property panel

Working Z
Controls the plane on which new rooms and wall obstructions are drawn.

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.

Z Min Filter
Can 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
[stem 1d5ba78bbbafd3226f371146bc348363] if there are no floors below.

Z Max Filter
Can be a Z plane location or can have the special value, NEXT_FLOOR. If it is NEXT_FLOOR, then

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the Z plane is set to the working Z plane of the next higher floor if one exists, or [stem
701fa44621fd283e3f2c5468958859d8] if there are no higher floors.

3.2. 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 is 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.

3.2.1. Adding New Rooms

Pathfinder provides two tools for adding new room geometry:

Polygonal Room Tool

The Polygonal Room tool allows for the creation of complex shapes with any number of
vertices (Figure 21).

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.

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Figure 21. Drawing a room with the polygon tool

Rectangular Room Tool

The Rectangular Room tool creates simple rectangular geometry by left-clicking two points
in the model (Figure 22).

The rectangular area can also be created by entering coordinates for two points in the property
panel and clicking Create.

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Figure 22. Drawing a room with the rectangle tool

In addition to creating new areas, 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 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.).

3.2.2. 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 23.

Figure 23. 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 View or 3D View as follows:

1. Select one of the room drawing tools.

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2. 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.

3.2.3. 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 25.

Dividing a Room

Figure 24. Original room Figure 25. Two new rooms from the original

3.2.4. Separating and Merging Rooms

In addition to dividing rooms, Pathfinder has two additional means to aid in creating more
complex room geometry.

Merge
The Merge command is used to join two or more rooms that share boundaries into one room.
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.

To Merge rooms:

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1. Select the neighboring rooms

2. Select Merge from either the Model menu or the right-click menu (Figure 26)

Rooms can be merged even if they do not lie in the same plane as long as they
NOTE
share a common edge.

Merging rooms

Figure 26. Two rooms to Merge

Figure 27. New merged room

Separate
The Separate command breaks a room into its constituent parts along any negative space that
divides it (Figure 29).

To Separate a room:

1. Select the room to be separated

2. Select Separate from either the Model menu or the right-click menu (Figure 28).

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Separating a room

Figure 28. Single room shared point

Figure 29. Two separated rooms

3.2.5. Room Properties

To view and edit room properties, select a room. Its properties will be displayed in the property
panel as shown in Figure 30.

Figure 30. Room properties panel

Name
An identifying name for room.

Visible
Whether the room is currently visible. Uncheck to hide the room.

Color
The color of the room. If unchecked, a default room color is used.

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Opacity
The opacity of the room. Making this value less than 100% will cause objects behind the room
to become visible.

X, Y, and Z Bounds
The geometric bounds of the room.

Area
The geometric area of the room.

Pers
The number of occupants currently placed in the room.

Density
The number of occupants/area

Refuge Area
Marks the room as a Refuge area, which can then be specified in a list of rooms for the Goto
Refuge Rooms action as discussed in Section 5.3.3. When this option is selected, occupants will
be tagged as "safe" whenever they are in the room. The "safe" times are reported in the
Occupants Summary (Section 14.7) and Occupant History (Section 14.8) output files.

Speed Modifier
A time-variable factor that affects the speed 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 31. 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.

Capacity
A maximum capacity of the room, which can be specified using an occupant count or a density.
Specifying room capacity is optional. If at any time during the simulation the room capacity
reaches the limit, no occupants will enter the room until the room capacity decreases below
the limit.

Accepted Profiles
A list of occupant profiles for which the occupants can enter this room (see Section 2.6.1 for
help using this dialog). By default, all occupant profiles are accepted.

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Figure 31. Edit Speed Modifier dialog

3.2.6. 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 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:

1. Select the room(s) that should not be crossable.

2. Right-click one of the rooms, and from the menu select Make Doors One-way. A dialog will
appear as in Figure 32.

3. 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 option will be provided to overwrite
the one-way status of those doors.

4. Click 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.

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Figure 32. Make Doors One-way dialog

If any doors were shared between rooms in the selection, those doors will not be
NOTE
affected, as their direction would be ambiguous.

3.2.7. Mesh Optimization

Pathfinder performs automatic mesh optimization. An example of mesh optimization is removing
multiple vertices in a straight line, or removing extra vertices left over after merging rooms. In
some cases, it might be beneficial to disable mesh optimization.

To disable mesh optimization, select Preferences from the File menu, and uncheck Optimize
Navigation Geometry.

This setting will be maintained even after closing and reopening Pathfinder. If
NOTE mesh optimization is being enabled, Pathfinder provides an option to optimize all
navigation geometry at once.

3.3. 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.

3.3.1. Arbitrarily-Shaped Obstructions

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
already exist.

To create the obstruction:

1. 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

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create a new room.

2. Next, delete the new room. A hole is left in the old room in the shape of the obstruction. This
process is shown in Creating an obstruction.

Creating an obstruction

Figure 33. Start with an existing room Figure 34. Draw the obstruction shape

Figure 35. Delete the new room Figure 36. The cut out area obstructs movement

3.3.2. Thin Walls

Thin, internal walls or boundaries can be added to rooms with the Thin Wall tool .

To use this tool, click two points in the model as shown in Figure 37. Pathfinder will attempt to
connect these two points with an internal boundary edge.

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Figure 37. Adding a thin wall to a room

In some circumstances, Pathfinder may have trouble connecting the two points. If
NOTE this occurs, try limiting the two points to one room or to the number of room
boundaries crossed.

3.3.3. Thick Walls

The wall tool is used to make rectangular obstructions in existing geometry (Figure 38).

To make a thick wall:

1. Click on the wall tool.

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2. Enter the desired wall width in the property panel.

3. 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.

Figure 38. Drawing thick walls

The thick wall tool is not as robust as the thin wall tool. It operates by subtracting
NOTE 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.

3.4. Doors
In Pathfinder, occupants cannot pass between two rooms unless they are joined by a 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.

The simulator requires that each occupant must have a path to at least one exit
NOTE
door.

When adding doors, different parameters provide hints to Pathfinder for finding a valid door as

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shown in Figure 39.

Min Width
Restricts potential edges to only those that are longer.

Max Width
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.

Max Depth
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.

Figure 39. Door tool property panel

3.4.1. Thin Doors

Thin doors can be used to connect two rooms that touch one another as shown in Figure 40. A
door is needed in this example to allow occupants to travel from one room to the other.

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To create a door in this manner:

1. Select the door tool .

2. Then use one of the following three methods:

a. 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 this button, and a
door no larger than Max Width will be created. For thin doors, Max Depth will be
ignored.

b. 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.

c. 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.

3. The created door will appear as a thin, orange line in the 3D and 2D views as shown in Figure
41.

Figure 40. Two rooms with a shared wall Figure 41. Adding a thin door to connect the
rooms

3.4.2. Thick Doors

Thick doors are often useful in realistic models, especially when CAD geometry has been
imported. In real scenarios, rooms will not touch each other by infinitely thin walls as shown in
Figure 42.

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To create a thick door to connect these rooms:

1. Select the door tool

2. Use one of the following three methods:

a. 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.

b. 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.

c. 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 the properties in the tool panel.

3. The created door will appear as an orange rectangle in the 3D and 2D views as shown in
Figure 43.

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.

The extra area attached to each room is neglected when the area of the room is
NOTE
reported in its property panel, but it is included during simulation.

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Figure 43. Thick door connecting the rooms

Figure 42. Two rooms separated by a gap

3.4.3. Door Properties

To edit a door’s properties, select the door. Its properties will appear in the property panel as
shown in Figure 44.

Figure 44. Door property panel

Width
The width of the door. Changing this value will change the width of the door, but the value
cannot exceed the length of its room edge.

Flow Rate
Checking this box overrides the default door flow rate setting in the Simulation Parameters
Dialog (see Section 13.1). Setting this value controls the maximum occupant flow rate for the
door in units of pers/s. This can be used, for instance, when a particular door has been
measured to flow at a specific rate and that rate must be reproduced. A value of 0.9 pers/s, for
instance, would mean that one occupant can go through the door every 1.1 seconds (1/0.9).

While setting a flow rate will set an upper limit, actual flow rates will often be
slightly less in steering mode even if there is a large queue at the door. In
addition, the flow rate is considered local knowledge. Occupants are only
NOTE
aware of the flow rate of doors in their current room and unaware of those
downstream when calculating their global travel time as discussed in Section
5.1.4.

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State
Indicates the timed opening, closing, and changing the one-way direction of the door, see
Section 3.4.3.1. A One-way door is one through which occupants can only travel in one
direction.

Wait Time
Amount of time for which each occupant must wait at the door before walking through it. This
can be used to simulate turnstyles or doors with access keys. The specific wait time for each
occupant will be drawn at random from a predefined continuous or discrete distribution.

Wait time is considered global knowledge. An occupant knows about the wait
times of downstream doors when choosing between doors in their current
NOTE
room. In addition, a local door’s wait time is part of the Global Travel Time as
discussed in Section 5.1.4.

Accepted Profiles
A list of occupant profiles for which the occupants can enter this door. By default, all occupant
profiles are accepted.

3.4.3.1. Door State

By default, all doors are always open throughout the simulation. To change this, click the link to
the right of State.

The Edit Door State dialog will appear as shown in Figure 45. 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, opens in +X
direction at t=20 s, and then opens in both directions again at t=30 s.

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.

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Figure 45. Door State dialog

Occupants can ignore the one-way setting of doors if their profile has Ignore One-
way Door Restrictions checked. This allows them to go through in either
direction. In addition, door state is considered global knowledge - an occupant
NOTE knows about the state of downstream doors when making a local door choice. For
instance, if a door is permanently closed downstream, the occupant will plan a
route that does not use that door. Similarly, they will not plan a route that goes the
wrong way through a one-way door.

3.5. Stairs
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. See Stair geometry requirements for an illustration
of this issue. The size of the gap must be greater than or equal to the radius of the largest occupant
to travel on the stairs.

Stair geometry requirements

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Figure 46. Shows a stair that will not simulate

correctly Figure 47. Shows a stair that will simulate
correctly

3.5.1. Stairs Between Edges

One way to create stairs is to draw them between 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 rise and run may or may not match the actual slope of the stairs. In Pathfinder, the
speed on stairs is determined by the specified tread and run. The geometric slope of stairs is for
display only and not used to calculate the speeds.

To create stairs between edges:

1. 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.

2. Select the two-point stair tool, . The property panel will display the stair creation properties
as shown in Figure 48.

3. The stairs can now be created in one of the three following ways:

a. 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 Create to add the stairs.

b. 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. (Figure 49) 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 stairs (Figure 50).

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c. 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.

For stairs between edges, the step count for display of the stairs is determined by
NOTE
the tread rise and total vertical rise.

To change the display, you may:

1. Measure the total vertical rise of the stair.

2. Set the tread rise to total rise/desired step count

Figure 48. Property panel for the two-point stair tool

Drawing stairs with the two-point stair tool

Figure 49. Click the first edge Figure 50. Click second edge to finish stairs

3.5.2. 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 stop when they meet a specified criterion or reach another room.

The property panel for the one-click stair tool, as shown in Figure 51, provides four ways to
terminate the stairs:

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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.

Figure 51. Property panel for the one-point stair tool

To create stairs in this manner:

1. Select the one-point stair tool, . The property panel will show.

2. 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.

3. Now the stairs can be created in one of the three following ways:

a. Manual Entry: Set the desired stair width, tread rise, tread run, and termination 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 Create to add the stairs.

b. 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.

c. 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.

4. Release the mouse to create the stairs.

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Figure 52. Drawing stairs using the one-point stair tool

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.

After creating a one-click stair, you can only modify the stair by clicking the handles and dragging
to existing geometry.

3.5.3. 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 53.

Figure 53. Stair property panel

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Riser and Tread

Together, these parameters control the speed at which occupants can travel on the stairs
during simulation. The default speed on stairs uses the SFPE speed modifiers, see (Pathfinder
Technical Reference, n.d.). 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.

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.

Width
The width of the stair.

Top Door and Bottom Door

Clicking these links show the dialog in Figure 54. Here, properties of each implicit door can be
edited independently of the other door, including Width, Flow Rate, and State. For more
information on these properties, see Section 3.4.3.

One-way
Indicates whether the stair should only allow occupants to travel in one direction and if so,
which direction.

Speed Modifier
A time-variable factor that affects the speed of occupants who travels on the stair. This acts the
same as the Speed Modifier property for rooms (see Section 3.2.5).

Capacity
A maximum capacity of the stair, which can be specified using an occupant count or a density.
This acts the same as the Capacity property for rooms (see Section 3.2.5).

Additional Info
Clicking this link shows additional information about the stair, such as its geometric bounding
box, area, and number of occupants.

Accepted Profiles
A list of occupant profiles for which the occupants can enter this stair. By default, all occupant
profiles are accepted.

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Figure 54. Stair door property dialog

3.6. 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 , and the one-point ramp
tool . The key difference between ramps and stairs is that ramps do not affect the speed at
which occupants travel by default.

3.7. Escalators
Pathfinder provides some limited support for escalators. They are essentially stairs with slightly
modified properties.

To create an escalator, perform the following:

1. Create a stair as discussed previously.

2. Select the stair (or several) so its properties are visible in the property panel as shown in
Figure 53.

3. Set a one-way direction for the stair.

4. Click the Speed Modifier drop-down, and choose Speed Constant as shown in Figure 55.

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.

Figure 55. Changing a stair into an escalator

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In the results view, escalators do not appear differently than stairs.

By default, occupants do not walk on moving walkways or escalators, and they will not stand on
any specific side. This can be changed by modifying the occupant’s profile and selecting their
Escalator Preference (see Section 5.1). If an occupant is walking, the escalator’s speed constant
will be added to the occupant’s current speed on the escalator.

When escalators are turned off, occupants will use them as stairs, regardless of
NOTE whether their profile indicates that they want to walk on escalators, or if their
profile indicates that they should stand on a given side.

3.8. 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 Ramp instead, which can be made flat like a walkway.

3.9. Elevators
Pathfinder supports elevators in egress-mode operation, which is based on current thinking
described in Using Elevators In Fires (Bukowski and Li 2010).

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 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.

3.9.1. Creating Elevators

Elevators can be made after creating the rest of the model.

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Perform the following steps to create the elevator (refer to Figure 18):

1. Draw a room that defines the shape of the elevator, preferably on the discharge floor, see
Figure 56.

2. Draw all doors on the boundary of the base room, see Figure 57. Occupants will use these
doors on every floor to enter and exit the elevator.

3. Right-click the base room, and from the right-click menu, select Create Elevator, see Figure
58. This will show the New Elevator dialog as shown in Figure 59.

4. In the New Elevator dialog, enter all parameters for the elevator:

Name
The name of the elevator.

Nominal Load
The number of people in a full load (estimated). Please read the Nominal Load section
below for details.

Elevator Geometry
The base room that defines the elevator shape. This defaults to the room that was originally
selected.

Travel Direction
A vector defining the direction the elevator can travel. This vector will automatically be
normalized. The elevator can travel negatively against this vector.

Elevator Bounds
This defines the bottom-most and top-most floors the elevator can connect to.

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.

Acceleration (Elevator Timing) [optional]

The acceleration of the elevator.

Max Velocity (Elevator Timing)

The maximum velocity that the elevator can accelerate to.

Open+Close Time (Elevator Timing)

The sum of the door opening and closing times. Each value will be taken as half of this.

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Call Distance
The distance away from the elevator door at which an occupant can call the elevator.

Double-Deck
Whether the elevator should use two connected decks to transport occupants. Please see
the Double-Deck Elevators Section for details.

5. Click 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 either be allowed to use elevators in their
Profile under Restricted Components (see Section 5.1.2) or be explicitly told to do so through their
behaviors, as discussed in Behaviors. Occupants can be encouraged to prefer elevators to stairs
using the Elevator Wait Time Profile parameter (see Section 5.1.4).

The timing values can be re-calculated using a new timing model by selecting the
NOTE elevator, selecting Edit next to Level Data in the property panel, and then
selecting Reset in the level data dialog.

Figure 56. Draw elevator room

Figure 58. Select Create Elevator
geometry Figure 57. Draw elevator door
in right-click menu

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Figure 59. New Elevator dialog

3.9.2. 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 60. 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, see Figure 61. In addition, 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 "<Disconnected Level>".

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Figure 61. Elevator in Navigation panel.

Figure 60. New elevator shaft highlighted.

3.9.3. 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 62.

Figure 62. Elevator property panel

Nominal Load
The number of people in a full elevator load (estimated). Please read Section 3.9.4 below for
details.

Open Delay
The minimum amount of time an elevator’s doors will stay open on a pickup floor.

Close Delay
The minimum amount of time the elevator’s doors will stay open after an occupant passes
through one of the doors. This can also be thought of as the time someone in the elevator will
hold the door open waiting for another occupant to enter. This delay time will reset every time
an occupant passes through the doors. If the delay time passes without another occupant
passing through the doors or without another occupant appearing in range of the doors or the
elevator reaches capacity, the doors will close. The total amount of time for elevator doors to
stay open, assuming no other occupants are within sight of the elevator who are heading
toward it, can be summarized as: [stem 5e303889c624abe30a2c2c556d2ccfd6]

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Discharge Floor
The floor at which occupants will discharge during an evacuation.

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 63. This
allows the simulation of a fire floor.

Level Data
Click the Level Data: Edit link to edit timing for each floor. This will open the Elevator Levels
dialog as shown in Figure 64.

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 amount of time it takes to open and close the doors for this floor. The door is
assumed to open and close at the same speed, so after arrival at a floor the door will open
after a delay of half the specified Open+Closed Time. Similarly, after the door closes the
elevator will leave the floor after a delay of half the specified Open+Closed Time.

Pickup Time
The time for the elevator to travel from the discharge to the pickup floor.

The pickup and discharge times are calculated from the timing parameters
NOTE
entered in the New Elevator dialog when the elevator is created.

Discharge Time
The time for the elevator to travel from the pickup to the discharge floor.

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 timing options
shown are the same as those shown when creating the elevator.

Initial Floor
The floor at which the elevator deck will be located at the beginning of the simulation.

Call Distance
The distance away from the elevator door at which an occupant can call the elevator.

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Double-Deck
Whether the elevator should use two connected decks to transport occupants. Please see
Section 3.9.7 for details.

Figure 63. Elevator Priority dialog

Figure 64. Elevator Levels dialog

3.9.4. 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.

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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.

3.9.5. Connecting/Disconnecting Floors

When an elevator is created, by default it is connected to every 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:

1. Right-click the elevator door on the desired floor from the Navigation View or 3D/2D View.

2. Select Disable from the right-click menu.

To re-enable it, right-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.

3.9.6. 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:

1. Create a group in the top Elevators group.

2. Add the desired elevators to the new group.

All elevators in the group will be in the same call set as shown in Figure 65.

Figure 65. Elevator call sets

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3.9.7. Double-Deck Elevators

Double-deck elevators use two connected decks to transport occupants, which increases the
efficiency of moving occupants between floors. Occupants use a double-deck elevator similarly to
a regular elevator.

After calling an elevator, the double-deck elevator arrives at the given floor, and the doors of its
two decks open at the two adjacent floors (even and odd). When the decks are loaded, the double-
deck elevator moves to the discharge floors.

A double-deck elevator requires two discharge floors, one for each deck. In Pathfinder, the
Discharge Floor denotes the lower discharge floor. The upper discharge floor is directly above
the lower discharge floor.

After arriving at the discharge floor, the elevator doors of both decks open, allowing occupants to
leave both decks of the elevator.

There are several conditions that must be followed when using a double-deck elevator in
Pathfinder:

• The total numbers of elevator levels above and below the pair of discharge levels must be
even. However, any non-discharge level can be disabled.

• The vertical distance between each pair of even and odd level must be equal to the vertical
distance between the lower and upper discharge floor, since the distance between the elevator
decks is fixed. However, the distances between the different level pairs can be arbitrary.

• Neither the lower, nor the upper discharge levels can be disabled.

3.10. 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 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 66.

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Figure 66. An exit door

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Chapter 4. Importing Files

Pathfinder can import a large number of image and CAD formats. Imported files can be used as an
aid to more quickly generate the navigation mesh and give more context and visual appeal to a
simulation.

4.1. Importing Images

Background images can be imported by clicking Add a Background Image on the Model menu.

1. When clicked, a dialog will appear prompting for an image file. The following image formats
are currently supported: BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, and TGA. After a file is selected, a new dialog will
appear as shown in Figure 67. This dialog allows properties of the image to be specified so that
the proper scaling, rotation, and offset can be applied.

2. An anchor point is specified on the image that indicates where that point is located in 3D
space of the model. By default, the point you click will be placed at the origin point (0,0,0) in
the model.

3. To specify the scaling for the image, two points, A and B, and a distance between them can be
specified (Figure 68).

4. 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→B vector should be 90
degrees from the X axis.

5. Click OK and the image will be placed in the model as specified (Figure 69).

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Figure 67. Set the anchor point

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Figure 68. Set scaling points A and B

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Figure 69. Background image added to the model.

The imported image is added to the Imported Geometry → Background Image group in the
Navigation View. The image can be edited and deleted from there.

NOTE Any number of images can be added to any floor.

4.2. Importing CAD Files

Pathfinder can import geometry from several CAD formats, including buildingSMART’s IFC format
for building information models (BIM), AutoCAD’s DXF (Drawing Exchange Format), DWG, FBX,
DAE, and OBJ files.

Depending on which type of file is imported, Pathfinder also provides various tools to generate
the navigation mesh elements such as rooms, doors, and stairs, see Section 4.3.

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To import one of these files:

1. Under the File menu, select Import and select the desired file.

2. After selecting a file, a step-by-step dialog will open as shown in Figure 70.

Figure 70. CAD import dialog (units) Figure 71. 2D CAD import options

3. The first prompt asks whether the CAD data should be imported into the current model or into
a new one. Importing into the current model allows many CAD files to import into one
Pathfinder model.

FBX Exporter
If an FBX file is being imported, the second prompt will ask what software was used to
export the file. If a SimLab FBX plugin was used to create the FBX file, choose SimLab from
the drop-down box; otherwise; choose Unknown. This selection controls the default
settings in the subsequent prompts. In some cases, Pathfinder is able to detect whether the
file was exported using a SimLab plugin and will select this option automatically.

4. Units: Select the base unit in which the CAD file was created. If the drawing was saved in a
more recent file format, the prompt will default to the unit type stored in the file. The dialog
box shows the model’s width, depth, and height based on the selected unit as a guide for
selecting the unit.

5. Import Settings: The next prompt allows the user to control how some of the data is imported
and to correct some data that may have been written incorrectly by the file’s CAD exporter.

Normal Tolerance (DWG/DXF only)

Controls the quality of curved objects. Decreasing this value produces higher quality
objects at the expense of slower rendering speed. The default value of [stem
6fed8823511909ba34704c1948f66a03] provides a nice balance.

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NURB Gridlines (DWG/DXF only)

Controls the quality of NURB surfaces. Increasing this value gives higher quality curves at
the expense of slower rendering speed. The default value of [stem
c4a08d3f36d17948846ec69cfe53c5a2] provides a good balance.

Auto-correct inverted polygons

Some CAD files contain information about the normal of a polygon that affects how the
polygon is lit. In some cases, the normal may not match the orientation of the polygon,
which can cause the polygon to appear too dark. Selecting this option will allow Pathfinder
to try to detect these cases and correct the orientation of the polygon so it may be lit
correctly. This option works well in most models and is generally safe to leave on.

Crease Angle
Some CAD files do not provide lighting data for objects to determine whether they should
look smooth or faceted. In this case the crease angle is used to determine this information.
If the angle between two adjacent faces is greater than this value, the faces will be look like
they are two separate, faceted faces. Otherwise, the two faces will look like one smooth
curved face. This option may also affect whether the edges of faces are displayed when the
Show Object Outlines option is enabled as explained in Section 2.3.1.

Merge identical materials

Some CAD exporters (namely SimLab’s Revit FBX plugin) will create a unique material per
object in the file, which may lead to hundreds or thousands of materials that have
duplicate properties. Selecting this option allows the materials with duplicate properties to
be merged into one material, significantly reducing the number of materials in the model
with no loss of quality. The only disadvantage to using this option is that some selection
granularity is lost when using the Select All by Material action as more objects will be
assigned the same material.

Ignore transparency color (FBX only)

In FBX files, material transparency is determined from a transparency color and factor.
Some CAD exporters (SimLab’s FBX plugins) export the color incorrectly. Selecting this
option will allow Pathfinder to ignore the transparency color in the FBX file and only use
the transparency factor, which allows transparency in these files to import correctly. This
option should only be selected if it is known that the file came from a SimLab plugin or
there are transparency problems without it selected (For example, objects that should be
transparent are not or vice versa).

Object Grouping (IFC only)

Specifies how objects will be grouped once imported into Pathfinder. The value can be one
of the following:

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Spatial (default)
The objects are grouped based on the spatial layout of the model. For instance, the top
group is the building site, the next group is the building, the next are the floors, etc.

By Type
Objects are grouped by type. For instance, there will be a group for walls, furniture,
slabs, etc.

6. Options: This prompt allows the user to specify more options for import. Before this prompt is
shown, 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.

Lines
Check to import lines in the file (default=checked only for floorplans.)

Faces
Check to import faces in the file (default=checked only for 3D models.)

Geometry Offset
Will offset imported geometry on the X, Y, and Z planes by the specified values.

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.)

Add a 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 have its Import
Type set to <ignored> by default so it does not contribute to generating the model as
described in Section 4.3, (default=checked only for 2D floorplans.)

7. Choose Finish to import the file.

All imported elements will be added to the "Imported Geometry" node in the Navigation View. If
the CAD file was a DWG or DXF, the grouping structure will include the model level, the layer
level, and all entities distributed within the layer. For IFC files, the grouping is determined by the
Object Grouping setting as specified above. For other CAD files, the grouping structure will match
the node structure in the file. If both lines and faces were included in the 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.

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In versions prior to Pathfinder 2012.1, DXF import allowed a background image to

NOTE
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.

4.2.1. Imported Objects

When a CAD file is imported, there may be many resulting objects. Depending on the type of
imported file, there are various levels of information that may be imported for each resulting
object. Each object has a name and always includes some geometric information, such as the 2D
curves or 3D faces composing the object. For some files, such as IFC files, there may be even
higher-level information such as whether the object is a door and the door’s width. Pathfinder
uses this information to generate model elements as described in Working with Imported Data.

Common to all import objects 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.

When an imported object is selected, its property panel appears as shown in Figure 72.

Figure 72. Imported IFC object’s property panel

Imported objects have the following properties:

Visible
Whether the object is currently being shown in the 3D or 2D view.

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 85. 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 clicking the OK button. To remove the reference to
the material, select the <No Material> option from the material list.

Because materials can be shared among faces, editing a material applied to one
NOTE
face will also change the visual appearance of all faces referencing that material.

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Color
The color of the selected objects when they have no material or the Show Materials option is
turned off.

Opacity
The opacity of the selected objects when they have no material or the Show Materials option
is turned off.

X, Y, Z Bounds
The bounds of the object’s geometry.

Object Type
The object’s originating type as specified in the imported file. For IFC files, this is the object’s
IFC Entity type, such as IfcRoof. This value cannot be changed.

Import Type
Specifies how the object is to be treated when automatically generating the model as described
in Section 4.3.1. Pathfinder chooses the value for this property during import. For more
information on how the Import Type is chosen, see the section for each import file type (see
Section 4.2.2).

Generate Model from BIM Selection

This action attempts to generate a Pathfinder model from the selected imported objects. For
more information, see Section 4.3.1.

4.2.2. Importing IFC Files

IFC files provide building information model (BIM) data in a fully 3D format. This format contains
advanced data about the types of objects in the building, including slabs, stairs, doors, etc., and it
provides the smoothest workflow for converting imported objects into Pathfinder elements (see
Section 4.3.1). It is also supported as an export format for many architectural CAD packages,
including Revit.

Unlike with the other import formats, however, textures are not currently
NOTE
supported.

When exporting an IFC file from another CAD package, such as Revit, it is preferable to use the IFC
2x3 Coordination View, though other IFC views should work as well.

Each object imported from an IFC file corresponds with an IFC Entity instance. Currently, only
instances with 3D geometry are imported. In addition, openings (holes) are pre-subtracted from
objects, and the openings are not imported as objects. For example, a wall in the IFC file might be

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associated with an opening object for a window. When importing, Pathfinder will subtract the
opening’s geometry from the wall geometry and only import the resulting wall. The window
would additionally be imported as a separate object.

The Object Type for each object is set to the object’s IFC Entity type, such as IfcWall. The Import
Type is chosen automatically based on the object’s Object Type and possibly other properties
specified in the IFC file. For instance, an IFC object with entity type, IfcCovering has an associated
PredefinedType property that specifies what kind of covering it is, such as a wall covering or floor
covering. For floor coverings, Pathfinder will automatically set the object’s Import Type to Floor
during import. Other types of coverings become Obstruction.

Table 2 specifies how the Import Type is chosen for imported IFC objects:

Table 2. IFC Import Type for IFC Objects

IFC Entity Type IFC Predefined Type Object Name Import Type
IfcBuildingElementProx "Path of Travel" "RPC <ignored>
y Male" "RPC Female"
IfcCovering FLOORING Floor
IfcDoor Door
IfcElement Obstruction
IfcRamp Floor
IfcSlab Floor
IfcStair Stair
IfcTransportElement ESCALATOR Stair
IfcTransportElement MOVINGWALKWAY Floor

<all others> <ignored>

NOTE The object’s name must contain one of the specified texts.

The IFC Entity Type includes derived entities unless specifically listed in the table. For instance,
IfcElement includes IfcBeam, IfcColumn, etc., since those entities derive from IfcElement and are not
listed in the table. IfcElement does not, however, include IfcDoor since IfcDoor is in the table. In
addition, IfcDoor includes both IfcDoor and IfcDoorStandardCase since IfcDoorStandardCase is
derived but not listed.

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4.2.3. Importing DXF Files

DXF is a basic CAD format provided by Autodesk. This format supports basic geometry types,
including 3D faces, lines, and text, but it does not support material information, such as textures,
lighting parameters, etc.

Import Type for all DXF objects is Obstruction. In order for the Import Type to be more useful, it
must be set manually. Some suggestions for doing so are given in Section 4.3.1.

4.2.4. Importing DWG Files

The DWG format is similar to DXF, but it also has basic support for materials, including textures. It
has only basic support for mapping textures onto objects, however, and few CAD applications can
export DWG files. Some, such as Revit, exclude material and texture information (see more
information in Importing Revit Files below).

Import Type for all DWG objects is Obstruction. In order for the Import Type to be more useful, it
must be set manually. Some suggestions for doing so are given in Section 4.3.1.

4.2.5. Importing FBX Files

FBX provides support for 3D faces only, but it has very good support for material information and
materials mapping. In addition, many 3D modeling applications have built-in support for
exporting FBX files.

Import Type for all FBX objects is Obstruction. In order for the Import Type to be more useful, it
must be set manually. Some suggestions for doing so are given in Section 4.3.1.

4.2.6. Importing PyroSim and FDS Files

PyroSim and FDS files provide objects with 3D faces. If the imported file contains holes, the holes
will be automatically 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 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.

Import Type for all PyroSim and FDS objects is Obstruction. In order for the Import Type to be
more useful, it must be set manually. Some suggestions for doing so are given in Section 4.3.1.

4.2.7. Importing Revit Files

While Pathfinder cannot directly import Autodesk Revit files (RVT), there are several ways to
export the data from Revit into a file format that Pathfinder can read. Each method has
advantages and disadvantages as discussed below.

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4.2.7.1. Revit to FBX using third-party plugin

This method requires the use of a third party plugin, but it generally produces good results with
materials, textures, and texture coordinates well-supported. In many cases, this is the most
reliable method of reproducing the graphical representation of the original Revit file within
Pathfinder. SimLab Soft is one company that provides commercial FBX export plugins for several
CAD packages, including Revit and Sketchup, among others, and provides robust texture support.

To export using a third-party plugin, perform the following:

1. Download and install the appropriate plugin.

2. Follow the plugin’s instructions to export an FBX file from Revit. If the plugin supports
embedded media, select this option before exporting. This option allows textures to be
embedded into the FBX file, making it much easier to transfer the FBX to another computer, as
only file has to be transferred.

3. If the FBX file is to be imported into Pathfinder on the same computer as the one that exported
the file or the embedded media option was selected, continue to the next step; otherwise, some
additional steps may be necessary to ensure the textures can be found when importing into
Pathfinder:

a. Determine the directory into which the FBX exporter saved the textures. Some exporters
may place the textures in a sub-directory of the FBX file and give it the same name as the
FBX file. Others may save the textures to a common program-specific location. The SimLab
Revit exporter, for example, saves textures for a particular file to
C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\SimLab\FBXExporter\data\Imported_Textures\#
where # is a number specific to the exported file, such as 40.

b. If the folder is not already a sub-directory of the FBX file, cut this folder and paste it in the
same location as the FBX file. The pasted folder may be left as is or renamed to be the
same as the FBX file, without the .fbx extension.

c. Transfer the FBX file and the texture folder to the computer that will be importing the FBX
file into Pathfinder.

4. Import the FBX file into Pathfinder.

4.2.7.2. Revit to IFC (direct)

The first method exports a building information model (BIM) in the industry foundation classes
(IFC) format. For more information on the IFC format, see Section 4.2.2.

To perform the export in Revit 2019, perform the following:

1. Open the desired RVT file within Revit.

2. Under the File menu, click Export→IFC.

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3. Choose the desired IFC filename.

4. Click Modify setup to choose different export settings, if desired.

5. Click Export to save the file.

6. Import the IFC file into Pathfinder.

4.2.7.3. Revit to DWG (direct)

This method exports a DWG file 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 perform the export in Revit Architecture 2014, perform the following:

1. Open the desired RVT file within Revit Architecture.

2. Click the Revit icon at the top left .

3. Select Export→CAD Formats→DWG.

4. In the DWG Export dialog, for Export, select <In session view/sheet set>.

5. For Show in list, select Views in the Model.

6. Click the Check None button, and then in the view table, select the check box for 3D View
(Other views may be chosen, but the DWG will only contain entities visible in the selected
views).

7. Click Next and choose a file name for the DWG file.

8. Click OK to create the DWG.

9. Import the DWG into Pathfinder.

4.2.7.4. Revit to FBX (direct)

This method exports an FBX file directly from Revit, which can then be imported into Pathfinder.
As with exporting a DWG, this method is simple to perform and only requires Revit.
Unfortunately, this method also loses all information about materials and textures because Revit
encrypts the material data, making it unreadable by Pathfinder.

To export using Revit Architecture 2014, perform the following:

1. Open the desired RVT file within Revit Architecture.

2. Click the Revit icon at the top left .

3. Select Export→FBX.

4. Choose a file name for the FBX file.

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5. Click OK to create the FBX.

6. Import the FBX into Pathfinder.

4.2.7.5. 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:

1. Open the desired RVT file within Revit Architecture.

2. Click the Revit icon at the top left .

3. Select Export→FBX.

4. Specify the desired filename and click Save.

5. Open AutoCAD.

6. On the Insert tab in the ribbon, select Import.

7. Select the FBX file created by Revit.

8. The FBX Import Options dialog will appear, see the recommended settings below.

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.

The following are recommended settings for the FBX import:

Import section
Make sure Objects and Materials are checked. Lights and Cameras are unused in Pathfinder.

Assign Objects to Layers

Any option may be selected, but By Material is a useful option for Pathfinder.

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.

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Block
Uncheck Insert file as block.

4.3. 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.

4.3.1. Generate Model Automatically

The easiest way to create a complete Pathfinder navigation mesh, including rooms, doors, and
stairs, is to use the Generate Model from BIM action. This action works best with imported IFC
files, but it can work with other CAD file types as well, as long as those files contain 3D face data,
such as from DXF, DWG, and FBX files. These non-IFC file types require some extra steps as
outlined below.

To use this action, perform the following steps:

1. Import all CAD files that contribute to the model into the same Pathfinder model.

2. If any of the imported files were not IFC, set the Import Type for the objects imported from
those files. These files default all objects to the Import Type, Obstruction, so this only needs to
be done for non-Obstruction objects.
Some fast ways to do this include:

a. If the imported objects are grouped together in the navigation view by type, select the
group containing the objects such as the one containing all the doors, and set the Import
Type in the property panel to Door.

b. If the imported objects contain the object type in their name, such as Door43, use the search
tool (Edit→Find) to select all with the text Door in the name. Then set the Import Type to
Door on the whole selection.

3. Delete any objects that should not contribute to the Pathfinder model or set their Import Type
to <ignored>. This may be necessary, for instance, if the file contained stand-in objects, such as
the building envelope.

4. In the Model menu, click Generate Model from BIM. This will show the Generate Settings
dialog as explained in Section 4.3.1.2.

5. Set the desired properties for generating the model, and click Generate. This will generate
rooms, stairs, and doors for the entire imported model.

6. If any exits still need to be added, do so manually.

7. There may be extra detached rooms that are not needed in the model. An easy way to remove
these is to first right-click a room that should be in the result, and click Select Connected

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Components from the right-click menu. Select the Entire graph option in the dialog, and click
OK. Hide the selected objects. Repeat this until all required components have been hidden.
The remaining extra rooms can be selected and deleted.

If only a subset of the imported objects needs to be modeled in Pathfinder, either set the Import
Type for unnecessary objects to <ignored> before generating the model with the above steps or
perform the following instead:

1. Select the imported objects that should be turned into navigation elements. The selection does
not have to include objects with Import Type set to Obstruction, as obstructions are
automatically subtracted during model generation.

2. Right-click the selected objects, and from the menu, click Generate Model from BIM
Selection.

3. In the Generate Settings dialog, enter the desired settings and click Generate.

When using the Generate Model from BIM actions, any existing rooms will be
overwritten with newly generated rooms if they exist in the same space; however,
NOTE
existing doors and stairs will not be overwritten, which may result in duplicate
doors and stairs.

4.3.1.1. Generate Process

The following table describes how Pathfinder converts imported objects into Pathfinder
navigation elements based on their Import Type and any additional properties that may have
been imported along with the object:

Table 3. Import types to Pathfinder Navigation Elements

Import Type Pathfinder Type Details

<ignored> — These objects are completely ignored when generating

the model.

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Import Type Pathfinder Type Details

Door Door To generate a Pathfinder door, Pathfinder first obtains

the geometry of the imported door that will define the
shape of the Pathfinder door. If the imported door has an
associated wall opening, the wall opening’s geometry is
used. If not, the door’s geometry is used. The minimum
bounding rectangle of the geometry is then used to define
the Pathfinder door shape. If the door’s geometry was
used and the door has an associated opening width
property, the resulting door will be no wider than this
opening width. The minimum bounding rectangle is then
extruded into a box such that the bottom of the box is
slightly below the bottom of the source geometry and the
top is slightly above the top of the source geometry. This
box is then subtracted from the generated rooms, and a
Pathfinder door is used to fill the gap.

Escalator Stair and Room The conversion is performed the same as for Import
Type Stair. If the resulting stair must be treated as an
actual escalator, its properties must be set after
generating the model. See Section 3.7 for more
information.

Floor Room Pathfinder will identify the potential walking surfaces of

the imported objects. It will then identify all potential
obstructions and subtract them from the walking
surfaces. NOTE: With the exception of objects with
Import Type, Door and <ignored>, all imported objects
are treated as obstructions to flow, even if they don’t
have Import Type, Obstruction.

Moving Walkway Room The conversion is performed the same as for Import
Type Floor. If an actual moving walkway is needed
instead of a room, delete the generated room and create a
moving walkway as described in Section 3.8.

Obstruction — These objects do not directly become Pathfinder objects.

Instead they become either holes in the rooms or thin
boundary walls.

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Import Type Pathfinder Type Details

Ramp Room The conversion is performed the same as for Import

Type Floor. If an actual ramp is needed instead of a
room, delete the generated room and create a ramp
instead as described in Section 3.6.

Stair Stair and Room To generate a Pathfinder stair, the imported object’s steps
are first generated as if they were rooms. Like with
rooms, overhead obstructions, such as railings, are
subtracted from them. After this, the steps of the stair are
connected together using Pathfinder stairs. If multiple
steps can be strung together in a row and have similar
rise and run characteristics, they all become one stair.
Otherwise, they are separated into multiple stairs so that
each stair has similar rise/run to the underlying imported
geometry. This process may leave part of the stair
geometry, such as the landings, as rooms.

4.3.1.2. Generate Settings

When using the Generate Model from BIM action, various settings can be specified in the
Generate Settings dialog as shown in Figure 73.

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Figure 73. Generate Settings dialog

The following settings are available in the Generate Settings dialog:

Max Slope
Determines the maximum slope of a floor to be considered as a walkable surface. A slope of 0°
indicates a flat surface, while a slope of 90° is vertical.

Max head height

The maximum height for objects to be considered overhead obstructions. Overhead
obstructions are used to cut out portions of the resulting rooms to prevent occupants from
walking in that space. Imported objects higher than this will not be counted as obstructions.

Generate from tops of solids

If checked, walkable surfaces will only be generated from closed, solid objects if the surface is
on the top of the solid (i.e. there are no other surfaces in the object above it). This helps reduce
the number of surfaces that will be considered for generating rooms, which also reduces the
computation time. The result should be the same, however, if this is checked or unchecked. If it
seems like any rooms are missing from the result, try unchecking this option.

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Exclude rooms in solids

If checked, rooms that were generated inside solid objects such as walls are excluded from the
result. This helps reduce the number of resulting rooms. If any rooms appear to be missing
from the result, try unchecking this option.

Close gaps smaller than x

If checked, thin boundary edges are inserted into a room anywhere where there are room
boundaries close together. This is useful in combination with Exclude rooms with area less
than x to reduce the complexity of the model.

Exclude rooms with area less than x

If checked, rooms with small area are excluded from the result. This is useful in combination
with Close gaps smaller than x to reduce the complexity of the model and remove portions
where an occupant would not walk, such as between a desk and wall.

Use imported names

If checked, the resulting navigation elements (rooms, doors, stairs) will be named after the
imported object from which they derived. Otherwise, a generic name will be used.

Generate doors
If checked, adds Pathfinder doors to the navigation mesh from the imported doors.

NOTE Any imported object can be considered a door if its Import Type is set to Door.

Generate stairs
If checked, adds Pathfinder stairs to the navigation mesh from the imported stairs.

Any imported object can be considered a stair if its Import Type is set to Stair.
In addition, a stair might be turned into multiple Pathfinder stairs, including
NOTE
single-step stairs if the imported stair does not conform to a single Pathfinder
stair, as with spiral staircases.

Max vertical step distance

The maximum allowed distance in the Z direction between steps of a stair. If an imported stair
contains any consecutive steps further away than this, they will not be connected.

Max horizontal step distance

The maximum allowed distance in the XY direction between steps of a stair. If an imported
stair contains any consecutive steps further away than this, they will not be connected.

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Min stair width

The minimum width of resulting stairs. If an area that looks like a stair is narrower than this
distance, it will not result in a stair.

4.3.1.3. Limitations

While the Generate Model from BIM action can quickly provide a good starting point for a
Pathfinder simulation, it does have some limitations, including:

• Escalators are only supported as Pathfinder stairs. Their speed and direction are not
determined during extraction.

• Moving walkways are only supported as Pathfinder rooms. Their speed and direction are not
determined during extraction.

• Elevators are not currently supported.

• Generated doors may be slightly wider than the actual door opening. This is because the shape
of the door is determined from either the imported door’s associated wall opening or the door
geometry. In the former case, the actual door opening may be slightly smaller than the wall
opening due to the door jam. In the latter case, the door geometry often includes door trim,
which may be several inches wider than the actual door opening. In addition, some CAD
packages may export a curtain wall door with windows on the side as one door object. In this
case, the resulting door may be quite a bit wider than the actual door opening because the
wall opening/door geometry would include the side windows.

• Pocket doors might be twice as wide as they should be since their opening may include the
space inside the walls.

• Doors might be thicker/deeper than the surrounding wall if the CAD package that exported the
IFC file uses deep wall openings rather than openings that are just deep enough to cut out an
opening in the wall. This should not significantly impact the simulation unless the opening is
extremely deep.

• The presence of a door threshold may prevent a door from generating correctly.

• Pathfinder stairs are only generated from objects marked with the Import Type, Stair. Some
objects, such as steps in a stadium might look like stairs but are actually marked as floors. In
this case, stairs will not be automatically generated, and will look like small, disconnected
rooms instead.

• Pathfinder may treat some objects as obstructions that should not participate in the extraction
process, such as a stand-in object representing the building envelope. This is caused by
limitations in the IFC format or the exporting CAD package, where these objects are marked
with the entity type, IfcBuildingElementProxy. This type is merely a stand-in data type for
objects not inherently supported by the IFC standard. They may or may not be physical objects
in the model, and there is currently no way to differentiate, so Pathfinder treats them all as

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obstructions.

4.3.1.4. Troubleshooting CAD Import

Depending on the imported CAD data, some problems may arise when generating the Pathfinder
model. Table 4 below may help determine the source of the problem and resolve it.

Table 4. CAD Import Problem, Cause and Solution

Problem Cause Solution

There is a wall in the middle of The wall/gap might actually be Either draw a door along the
a generated room where there a very thin gap that exists edge that bridges the gap or
was no obstruction or there is a between adjacent imported adjust the geometry of the
gap between rooms when they slabs. Pathfinder does not rooms and merge them
should be connected. currently close these small together.
gaps automatically.

A generated door should This can happen if the Select the door and use the
connect two rooms but is an imported door had no manipulation tool to connect
exit instead. associated wall opening, the the door to the other side of the
door’s geometry was thinner door opening.
than the surrounding wall, and
there is no slab or other floor
object under the door.

A generated door appeared This may happen if a single Delete the door and draw
where it wasn’t expected. door was broken into several manually instead.
pieces and/or objects were
marked as doors that weren’t
actually doors. For instance,
this might happen if the door
trim is modeled as a separate
object than the actual door, and
the trim is also marked as a
door. In this case, the piece of
trim is modeled as a separate
door.

A generated door was too This is usually caused by the Select the door and change the
small. same problem as above. Width in the property panel to
the desired size or delete and
redraw the door if this does not
work properly.

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Problem Cause Solution

A generated door was too wide. This can happen due to Select the door and change the
limitations in the door Width in the property panel to
extraction algorithm, see the desired size.
Section 4.3.1.3.

A door is missing The imported object’s Import Draw the door manually.
Type was not set to Door, or the
door had no walking surface
under it, did not have an
associated wall opening, and
was thinner than the
surrounding wall. This might
also happen if there is a door
threshold.

A room is missing This may either be because the Undo the import, ensure the
imported object defining the imported object’s Import Type
floor did not have its Import is set to Floor, and delete any
Type set to Floor or the objects that should not be in
Exclude rooms in solids the model. Then try generating
option was turned on and there the model again. If this still
is a solid object in the model does not work, draw the room
marked as an obstruction that manually.
should not be in the model,
such as one representing the
building envelope.

A stair is missing The imported stair object was Undo the import, set the
not marked as a Stair or the Import Type to Stair, and then
step distances exceeded the perform the Generate Model
limits set in the generate from BIM action again, or
settings. draw the stair manually.

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Problem Cause Solution

An imported stair was broken This can happen if an imported If the stair should have been
into several Pathfinder stairs. stair does not conform to a generated as a single
Pathfinder stair, such as with Pathfinder stair, delete the
spiral stairs. This might also generated stairs and draw the
happen if there are multiple stair manually.
directions from which an
occupant could step down off a
step of the stair. Another cause
could be that the step rise/run
changed drastically from one
step to another, such as if the
top or bottom step does not
align exactly with the
connecting slabs.

The steps of the generated stair This can happen if the steps of If desired, select the Pathfinder
do not match the steps of the the imported stair do not have stair and change its step
imported stair exactly. a consistent step height or rise/run in the property panel.
tread depth or the imported
stair did not line up exactly
with the slabs it was
connecting. In this case,
Pathfinder averages the
rise/run of the resulting steps
over the entire rise/run of the
stair, which may cause the
steps to be slightly out of
alignment with the imported
stair.

An elevator is missing. Generating elevators is not Create the elevator manually,

currently supported. see Section 3.9.

An escalator has extra steps off Escalators are generated as Delete the extra stairs.
of the side. stairs. Pathfinder generates
stairs using a generic algorithm
where any flat surface can be
treated as a step. If some of the
geometry looks like it might be
a step, Pathfinder will create a
stair going to it.

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4.3.2. Extract Rooms Individually

While automatic model generation should work for most 3D CAD files, it may not always produce
the desired result, the user might want more control over the rooms that are generated, or it
might just be too prohibitive to set the Import Type for some non-IFC CAD files.

Pathfinder provides an Extract Room tool that can address these issues. This tool allows
rooms to be extracted individually using a flood-fill algorithm. While it may take more effort to
extract all the necessary rooms, it does not require objects to have an Import Type specified
unless an object is to be ignored.

To use the Extract Room tool:

1. Select the tool from the drawing tool panel on the left of the 3D or 2D view. The tool properties
are shown in Figure 74.

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.

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.

Figure 74. Property panel for the Extract Room tool

2. 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.

3. 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.

Below is an example of a 3D CAD model Figure 75 and a room extracted from it Figure 76.

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Figure 75. Example CAD model Figure 76. Room extracted from the CAD model

When using the extract room tool, Pathfinder will include all imported geometry with faces, even
if hidden. If an object must be excluded from room extraction, the object’s Import Type must be
set to <ignored> before performing extraction. Otherwise, this tool completely ignores the Import
Type of the objects.

4.3.3. Working with 2D CAD

2D CAD 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

• It can have rooms extracted from it similarly to 3D imported geometry as described above.

To sketch the rooms using the built in drawing tools, refer to Section 3.2.

Extracting rooms from 2D CAD data works similarly to extracting rooms from 3D CAD data. As in
3D extraction, the Extract Room tool is used. In addition, the user must click a point in the
model with the tool, and one room will be extracted.

The main difference from 3D extraction is that the clicked point must not lie on any 3D imported
faces marked for room 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 room extraction prior to clicking the extraction point.

To manually exclude imported geometry from floor extraction, select the geometry and from the
property panel, set the Import Type to <ignored>. When determining which imported geometry to
extract rooms from, the 2D room extraction tool will automatically exclude hidden objects and
those manually ignored.

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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 77, the resulting room will spill outside of the lines
and form a room around the bounding box of all the lines as shown in Figure 78. In this case, this
outer portion of the room can be separated from the inner portion using the Thin Wall tool as
discussed in Section 3.3.2. 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.

Figure 77. Imported 2D CAD drawing Figure 78. Floor extracted within bounding box.

4.3.4. Working with Images

Working with background images requires the user to draw all rooms, doors, and stairs over the
background image (Figure 79). 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 80 shows a background image with rooms and doors drawn on top, with a
lowered opacity for the drawn rooms.

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Figure 79. Imported background image Figure 80. Rooms drawn over image

To draw rooms on top of a background image, refer to Section 3.2.

4.3.5. Filling in Missing Pieces

Once rooms have been extracted using the Extract Room tool, the model will still be missing
doors and stairs (Figure 81). Doors and stairs must be added manually as discussed in Section 3.4
and Section 3.5 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:

1. Select the door tool.

2. In the property panel for the tool as shown in Figure 44.

Max Width
Refers to the maximum width of the doorway to search for.

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.

3. Once the appropriate parameters have been entered, move the cursor over the desired
doorway (Figure 82). A door preview will be displayed. If it doesn’t, adjust the search
parameters in the property panel and try again.

4. If the door appears correctly, left click the mouse button. The doorway area of the room will

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be subtracted from the room, and the thick door will be created in its place (Figure 83).

Figure 81. Doorway wall gap Figure 82. Click inside the gap Figure 83. New door in the gap

4.3.6. 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 (Figure 84).

To do so, follow these steps:

1. Select the objects that need to be corrected.

2. Right-click the selection and select Set Z.

3. This will open the Set Z dialog as shown in Figure 84.

4. Set the desired options, and select OK to modify the geometry in the selection.

Figure 84. Set Z dialog

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The dialog shows the following properties and options:

Selection Bounds
Shows the minimum and maximum Z locations of the selected objects.

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.

Move to
This specifies how the geometry should be moved in the Z direction. This can be one of the
following values:

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.

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. [stem
e037678c24938fb2c2e03319096ae81f]

4.3.7. 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 option is selected in the
2D View or the 3D View, see Section 2.3. 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:

DWG, FBX, DAE, OBJ

These files have a concept of materials. Each material that is referenced by an object in the file
will be imported into Pathfinder. Currently, Pathfinder supports the diffuse color, diffuse
texture, opacity color, ambient color, specular color, and emissive color settings of the
material. Only the diffuse color and texture can be changed in the material dialog, however.

FDS and PSM

Pathfinder materials are constructed from the color and texture settings of the surfaces in
these file types.

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The use of the word "material" in Pathfinder is different than in PyroSim and FDS.
NOTE 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 85.

Figure 85. Materials dialog

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Pathfinder provides some default database materials. Most of these materials start with the
prefix, psm_ as in 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 New under the material list. Materials can also be
created from an initial texture image on disk by clicking Import. The image is copied into the
database directory. Newly created materials are added to the database, and can be used across
instances of Pathfinder.

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 from this dialog:

Texture 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 mortar, and each brick is 8"x3", the Width would be 32" and the
height would be 12".

Diffuse Color
Selecting this option makes the material display with a solid color.

Diffuse Texture Image

Selecting this option makes the material show a texture image.

Opacity Value
Defines the opacity of the material.

Opacity Texture Image

Defines a texture which controls the opacity of the material.

4.3.8. Advanced Material Properties

Additional material properties can be edited by pressing the Advanced Materials button. This
will show the Advanced Materials Dialog for the currently selected material.

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Figure 86. Advanced Materials dialog

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Most properties in this dialog can be specified as either a constant color/value or as a texture
image. The following material properties can be edited from this dialog:

Ambient
Defines the color used to modulate ambient lighting applied to the material. This will only be
applied when Image Based Lighting is disabled. Selecting the From Diffuse/Albedo option for
this channel causes the Diffuse channel value to modulate ambient lighting instead.

Emissive
Defines the amount and color of light emitted by the material.

Normal/Bump
Whether to use normal mapping or bump mapping for the material.

Normal
The normal map used for the material.

Y-Down Normals
Whether or not to invert the y-component of the provided normals. This should be enabled for
normal maps designed for DirectX. Check any documentation that comes with the material to
determine if this applies.

Bump
The bump map used for the material.

Bump Scale
The strength of the bump map effect.

Displacement/Height
The parallax displacement or height map to use.

Parallax Scale
The strength of the parallax mapping effect. This unit of this scale is purely visual, but it should
be kept low to prevent rendering artifacts.

Invert Parallax
Whether or not to invert the displacement/height map. This should be enabled for height maps.

Workflow
The material workflow to use. Provided options are Specular (Basic), Metallic (PBR), and
Specular (PBR). Materials with a Specular map are designed for either the Specular (Basic) or
Specular (PBR) workflow. Specular materials with a Roughness, Glossiness, or Ambient

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Occlusion map are meant for the Specular (PBR) workflow. Materials with a Metallic map are
designed for the Metallic (PBR) workflow.

Depending on which workflow is selected, the following additional properties are provided:

Specular
Defines the specular reflectance of the material. This property is only available in the Specular
(Basic) and Specular (PBR) workflows.

Metallic
Defines whether or not the material is metallic. This property is only available in the Metallic
(PBR) workflow.

Shininess
Defines how shiny the material’s surface is. This property is only available in the Specular
(Basic) workflow.

Roughness/Glossiness
Determines whether to use roughness or glossiness to define the material’s microsurface. This
option is only available in the Metallic (PBR) and Specular (PBR) workflows.

Roughness
Defines how rough a material’s microsurface is. This is the exact inverse of Glossiness. This
option is only available in the Metallic (PBR) and Specular (PBR) workflows.

Glossiness
Defines how glossy a material’s microsurface is. This is the exact inverse of Roughness. This
option is only available in the Metallic (PBR) and Specular (PBR) workflows.

Ambient Occlusion
Provides additional shading information for the material. Note that this property is not related
the scene-wide Ambient Occlusion in Results. This property is only available in the Metallic
(PBR) and Specular (PBR) workflows.

4.3.9. 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

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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.

4.4. Importing FDS Output Data

Pathfinder can use the PLOT3D data output from FDS to create time history data for each
occupant as they move throughout the simulation. In cases where FDS PLOT3D output data is
available for [stem f74275c195a72099e0b06f584fd5489a] Volume Fraction, [stem
8306272097a2ac71e3c568c80d48b7f9] Volume Fraction, and [stem
adae461c37eccd2f2a6ed21ebf2c5d08] Volume Fraction; Pathfinder will also output Fractional
Effective Dose (FED) for each occupant specified.

FDS data integration is a measurement only and does not alter the movements or decision making
within the Pathfinder simulation. However, enabling this feature causes simulations to require
additional runtime because of the additional processing load relating to reading the FDS output
files and mapping PLOT3D data to occupants.

To enable FDS Integration:

• On the Simulation menu, click Simulation Parameters.

• On the FDS Data tab, select Enable FDS Integration.

• Click Edit and select the SMV file from the FDS simulation of interest.

The dialog (Figure 87) will display information about the attached SMV file and indicate which
quantities were found.

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Figure 87. The Solution Parameters dialog after enabling FDS Integration.

Slowing Occupants in Response to Smoke

By selecting the Occupants Slow Down in Smoke checkbox, the maximum velocity of
occupants in a smoke filled area will be limited. This slowing effect uses FDS PLOT3D output
for SOOT Visibility in conjunction with the speed-visibility relationships observed in (Fridolf et
al. 2019).

For more information about how Pathfinder computes the maximum walking speed of occupants
in smoke, see (Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.).

Measuring Occupant FED

The parameter, Hypoxia FED Threshold, defines the oxygen concentration at which hypoxia
contributes to the FED calculation. When oxygen concentration is above the threshold, low
[stem adae461c37eccd2f2a6ed21ebf2c5d08] hypoxia will not contribute to accumulated FED.
The default value of 19.5% prevents misleading FED accumulation for occupants that are in
safe conditions. (Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.)

To enable FED and PLOT3D quantity output for one or more occupants:

1. Select one or more occupants

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2. In the selection editor, click More

3. In the Additional Occupant Properties dialog, on the Output tab, enable Print CSV Data

4. In the Print CSV Data dropdown, select Yes

Once the simulation has completed, CSV data is available for each specified occupant in the output
folder. See Section 14.8 for more information on the CSV data.

For information on how FED is calculated or how its use was verified in Pathfinder, see
(Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.) and (Pathfinder Verification and Validation, n.d.) documents
respectively.

4.5. Importing Custom Avatars

When viewing occupants as people in either Pathfinder or Pathfinder Results, occupants and
vehicles are represented by a 3D avatar. Avatars are chosen in either the Edit Profiles dialog (see
Section 5.1) or the Edit Vehicle Shapes dialog (see Section 5.2). While Pathfinder ships with many
avatars, they might not cover all modeling scenarios. Custom avatars can be imported into
Pathfinder to meet additional requirements.

4.5.1. Custom Avatar Requirements

The following file formats are supported for importing custom avatars:

Occupant Avatars
FBX, DAE

Vehicle Avatars
FBX, OBJ, DAE

Avatar files should follow these rules:

• There should be one avatar per file.

• When using an FBX file, if possible, the textures should be embedded in the file; otherwise, the
textures will have to be manually copied to the avatar directory (see Section 4.5.5 below).
Other file formats require copying textures.

Occupant avatars have the following additional constraints:

• There should be at least one "animation" where the avatar is in a T-pose or an A-pose or some
variation. There can be other animations in the file, but this will adversely affect loading
performance.

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• Occupant avatars must be "rigged", meaning there is a joint hierarchy specified in the FBX or
DAE file. The rig must be human-like.

• Joint names in the FBX or DAE file must follow standard conventions used by industry-wide
software.

Figure 88. Example of a "rigged" human character model in the "A" pose in Blender.

4.5.2. Where to Find Custom Avatars

There are a variety of sources for custom avatars. They can either be purchased or downloaded
online from third-party vendors specializing in 3D models or they can be created using third-
party tools. Pathfinder has been successfully tested with avatars provided from the following
sources:

Adobe Fuse
A tool for creating custom avatars with a library of clothing options and other customizable

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features. Available at https://www.adobe.com/products/fuse.html.

MakeHuman Community
An open source tool for creating 3D characters. Available at
http://www.makehumancommunity.org/.

Adobe Mixamo
A free online source for high quality character models and animations. This service provides
mostly fantasy characters, but it has some more realistics options as well. Available at
https://www.mixamo.com/.

4.5.3. Importing a Custom Occupant Avatar

To import a custom occupant avatar, perform the following steps:

1. On the Model menu, click Edit Profiles.

2. In the Edit Profiles dialog, click the list of avatars next to 3D Model to bring up the 3D Model
dialog.

3. In the 3D Model dialog, click the Import button.

4. Choose the desired file that contains the occupant avatar to import. This will copy the avatar
file along with some other supporting files into %APPDATA%/Pathfinder/models/md5/avatarname ,
where avatarname is the name of the avatar file.

By default, imported avatars are only available to the current user. See
NOTE
Section 4.5.7 for more information on sharing these avatars.

4.5.4. Importing a Custom Vehicle Avatar

To import a custom vehicle shape avatar, perform the following:

1. On the Model menu, click Edit Vehicle Shapes.

2. In the Edit Vehicle Shapes dialog, click the list of avatars next to 3D Model to bring up the 3D
Model dialog.

3. In the 3D Model dialog, click the Import button.

4. Choose the desired file that contains the vehicle avatar to import. This will copy the avatar file
along with some other supporting files into %APPDATA%/Pathfinder/models/props/avatarname ,
where avatarname is the name of the avatar file.

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By default, imported avatars are only available to the current user. See
NOTE
Section 4.5.7 for more information on sharing these avatars.

4.5.5. Fixing Avatar Issues

After importing a custom avatar, it may need further adjustments in order to display correctly.
The following is a list of recommendations for fixing avatar issues:

Table 5. Custom Avatar Issues

Problem Cause Fix

Avatar has Avatar file was an FBX without Copy image files from original avatar
missing textures. embedded textures or an OBJ or DAE location to target avatar location
file. under %APPDATA%/Pathfinder/models.

Some or all of FBX/DAE file might not be rigged or No fix currently. Contact
occupant avatar might not follow common joint [email protected] to
body parts do not naming conventions. report.
move during
animations.

Avatar is facing Avatar in originating file was not Apply a rotate transform in the BEA
the wrong facing the front. file as described in Section B.1.
direction.

Avatar is too Avatar was not modeled with realistic Adjust the scale factor in the BEA file
big/too small. units or the units were as described in Section B.1.
wrong/unspecified in the avatar file.

Avatar is offset Avatar was not located at the origin in Apply a translate transform in the
from the actual the source avatar file with feet on the BEA file as described in Section B.1.
occupant location. ground.

Avatar appears to Avatar has different proportions than Adjust the naturalspeed for the
slide/skate when those assumed by the importer. walking animations in the BEA file as
walking. described in Section B.2.2.

Other Avatar type is unsupported by Contact

Pathfinder. [email protected] to
report.

4.5.6. Avatar Performance Considerations

The avatars that ship with Pathfinder have been optimized for use in Pathfinder Results, allowing
many thousands of occupants to be displayed onscreen at once with good performance. Custom

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avatars are not optimized for Pathfinder Results, as they contain no level-of-detail information
and often have much more detail than is necessary for displaying thousands of occupants. Using
custom avatars will likely result in reduced results display performance compared to using
avatars supplied by Pathfinder.

Currently the only ways to mitigate this problem are to either limit the number of occupants using
the custom avatars or use custom avatars that are designed with low polygon counts and/or low-
resolution textures.

4.5.7. Making Avatars Available to Other Pathfinder Users

When avatars are imported into Pathfinder, they are copied into the %APPDATA%/Pathfinder/models/
location, which limits their use to the current user on the current machine. If the results of a
Pathfinder model containing these custom avatars are loaded by another user or on another
machine, the occupants using the custom avatars will look like the Mannequin model that ships
with Pathfinder. To make these custom avatars available to others users, perform the following
from the computer and user account from which the avatars were imported:

1. In File Explorer, navigate to the following location: %APPDATA%/Pathfinder/models

2. If copying occupant avatars, navigate to md5. If copying vehicle avatars, navigate to props.

3. Copy the desired avatar folders.

4. On the machine on which the avatars are to be made available, in File Explorer, navigate to
the following: %PROGRAMDATA%/Pathfinder/models. If this location does not yet exist, create it.

5. If copying occupant avatars, create/navigate to md5. If copying vehicle avatars, create/navigate

to props.

6. Paste from the clipboard.

If you want to make all custom avatars available to other users, simply copy the
NOTE %APPDATA%/Pathfinder/models location into %PROGRAMDATA%/Pathfinder on the target
computer.

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Chapter 5. Creating Occupants

In Pathfinder, occupants are defined in two parts: Profiles and Behaviors.

Profile
Defines fixed characteristics of the occupants, such as maximum speed, radius, avatar, and
color.

Behavior
Defines a sequence of actions the occupant will take throughout the simulation, such as
moving to a room, waiting, and then exiting.

5.1. 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 89).

To open the Edit Profiles dialog: on the Model menu, click Edit Profiles, or double-click the word
Profiles in the Navigation View.

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Figure 89. The Edit Profiles dialog

Description
Provides a place to enter descriptive text. This value is not used outside the Edit Profiles
dialog.

3D Model
Provides a way to use a specific set of 3D human models for an occupant profile. 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 select 3D models:

1. Click Edit on the 3D Model row. This will open the 3D Models dialog (see Figure 90).

2. To enable or disable a particular model, click the model’s icon. If the <hidden> choice is
selected, no 3D Model will be shown for the occupant.

By clicking the Import button in the 3D Models dialog, custom avatars can be imported into
Pathfinder. See Section 4.5 for more information.

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Figure 90. An example of the 3D model dialog.

5.1.1. Characteristics Tab

Priority Level
Completely relative and higher values indicate a higher priority. For instance, if three
occupants meet with assigned priorities of 4, 6, and 12, they will behave the same as if their
priorities were 0, 1, and 2, respectively. 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.

Shape
The occupant can be either a cylinder or a polygonal shape. In the case of a Cylinder,
Diameter, Height, Reduction Factor and Minimum Diameter can be specified.

Diameter
The 'shoulder width' of the cylinder representing the occupant. It is used for collision
testing and path planning during the simulation. This value will also affect how many

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occupants can be added to a room without overlapping. The default value of 45.58 cm is
based on the average of measurements of male and female persons from nine countries
(Pheasant and Haslegrave 2005). An earlier edition is referenced by G. Keith Still in his Ph.D.
thesis (Still 2000). As shown in the Pathfinder Validation and Verification Manual, this size
(and Interpersonal Distance) results in movement that matches the SFPE and
experimentally measured fundamental diagrams. Caution should be used in changing the
default Diameter value.

Height
specifies 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.

Reduction Factor
[optional] Is enabled by default and is useful in helping occupants to "squeeze" by one
another in congested areas. This factor is unitless and should be selected to be between 0
and 1. It can be considered a way to get the benefits of elliptical occupant shape (i.e. it gives
the occupants a radius corresponding to turning sideways) despite the simulator’s exclusive
use of circular occupant diameters. When occupants cannot otherwise move due to
occupant-occupant collisions, this factor is multiplied against the shoulder width to shrink
the collision circle and potentially allow occupants to ease through congestion.

Minimum Diameter
[optional] Is designed for models that have narrow seating areas and aisles. In cases where
there is some detail of the geometry that makes it difficult for full-width occupants to move,
this option can be enabled to alter the occupant-geometry collision test to accommodate the
narrower geometry. The occupant-occupant collision test is not affected by this feature.
Occupants will reduce their diameter to this value only if the geometry would otherwise
prevent them from further following their path. The default value of 33.00 cm is based on
th
the maximum depth of a human body for 95 percentile of measured individuals (Pheasant
and Haslegrave 2005).

If Reduce diameter to move through narrow geometry is checked, the

occupant will use the Minimum Diameter to plan their path through the
model. This means that if there are any narrow gaps >= Minimum
NOTE Diameter, such as behind a chair or shelf that results in a shorter path, the
occupant will try to navigate through that space. When using this feature, it
is best to either manually close off small gaps like this or use the Close
Gaps feature to ensure occupants don’t use these areas.

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Polygon
If this option is selected, a dropdown menu is used to select the vehicle shape. Vehicles are
used to model an occupant using an alternate mode of transportation, such as a wheelchair or
bed as used in assisted evacuation. See Section 5.2 for more information on creating vehicle
shapes or Chapter 7 for more information on assisted evacuation. The Edit button can be used
to access the Vehicle Shapes dialog. The optional Reduction Factor can be used in the same
way as for the cylinder shape, because occupants with vehicle shapes sometimes temporarily
use cylinder shapes in their movement calculations to avoid stuck situations.

5.1.2. Movement Tab

The Movement tab provides parameters related to how occupants use their surroundings.

Initial Orientation
Specifies an angle in degrees counter-clockwise from the positive x-axis which the occupants
will use as their orientation in the beginning of the simulation. Occupants can also be made to
orient on a specific point. This can be done outside of the Edit Profiles dialog by right clicking
selected occupants, and selecting Orient Occupants on Point from the context menu.

Requires Assistance to Move

Specifies whether the occupant requires assistance from another occupant in order to move.
This is useful when modeling assisted evacuation as described in Chapter 7. This option is
recommended for occupants that are unable to move under their own power (e.g. in a bed or
other carrying device).

Ignore One-way Door Restrictions

Whether the occupant will ignore the direction specified for one-way doors.

Escalator Preference
Specifies how the occupant will stand or walk on escalators and moving walkways. The
following options are available:

Stand anywhere
Occupants will get on the escalator and stand at any position. The occupant will stand still
and travel on the stair at the stair’s speed constant.

Stand left
Occupants will get on the escalator and stand at the left side. The occupant will stand still
and travel on the stair at the stair’s speed constant.

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Stand right
Occupants will get on the escalator and stand at the right side. The occupant will stand still
and travel on the stair at the stair’s speed constant.

Walk
The escalator’s speed constant will be added to the occupant’s desired speed on the stair to
determine the occupant’s final speed, and they will attempt to walk around standing
occupants.

Attractor Susceptibility (Seeking)

Defines the occupant’s susceptibility to attractors while the occupant is seeking (actively trying
to reach a destination). The susceptibility is multiplied by the attractor’s influence to
determine the probability that the occupant will use the attractor. If the product is 0%, the
occupant will not use the attractor. If the product is >= 100%, the occupant will definitely use the
attractor if they become aware of it and no other factors prevent them from doing so, such as
being a member of a movement group. See Section 9.5 for more information about attractor
influence and Section 9.6 for more information about when an occupant might not use an
attractor.

Attractor Susceptibility (Waiting)

Defines the occupant’s susceptibility to attractors while the occupant is waiting.

Even if the probability of using the attractor is >= 100%, the occupant might
not use the attractor while waiting if they are waiting an indeterminate
NOTE
amount of time, and they stop waiting before Default Attractor Idle Time has
elapsed. See Section 13.1.5 for more information about this parameter.

Allowed Attractors
Defines which attractors the occupant is allowed to use. The following values can be specified:

All
The occupant can use any attractor.

None
The occupant cannot use attractors.

From List
The occupant can only use the specified attractors (see Section 2.6.1 for help using the
Object Sets dialog). When using this option, the list can be specified in one of the following
ways:

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Reject
The occupant will not use any of the specified attractors, but can use those not listed.

Accept
The occupant can only use one of the specified attractors.

5.1.3. Restrictions Tab

The Restrictions tab specifies which components the occupant can use during path planning. For
each component type, the following options are available:

All
The occupant can use all components of that type.

None
The occupant cannot use any components of that type.

Up Only
[escalators only] The occupant can only use escalators that move occupants up.

Down Only
[escalators only] The occupant can only use escalators that move occupants down.

Based on Behavior
[elevators only] The occupant will only use elevators when their behavior contains a Go To
Elevators action. See Section 5.3.3 for more information. Otherwise, the occupant can use all
non-restricted elevators at any time.

From List
The occupant can only use certain components (see Section 2.6.1 for help using the Object Sets
dialog). When using this option, the list can be specified in one of the following ways:

Reject
The occupant will not use any of the specified components, but can use any other not listed.

Accept
The occupant can only use one of the specified components of that type.

5.1.4. Door Choice Tab

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, n.d.).

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Current Room Travel Time

The 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, making
the Current Room Travel Time relatively more important.

Current Room Queue Time

The 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, making the Current Room Queue
Time relatively more important.

The status of a door (open/closed) affects the current room queue time. See the
NOTE Pathfinder Technical Reference (Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.) for more
details.

Global Travel Time

The 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,
making the Global Travel Time relatively more important. The following are factored into the
global travel time:

• Walking distance and occupant speed

• Door wait times, including those for local doors (see Section 3.4.3)

• Room speed modifiers (see Section 3.4.3)

• Elevator discharge time (see Section 3.9.3)

Elevator Wait Time

The time during which the occupant will prefer to use an elevator. This is done by pretending
that there is no queue in front of the elevator, and that the elevator is ready to pick up the
occupant. After the elevator wait time runs out, the occupant will be more likely to choose the
stair. The elevator wait time is reset every time the occupant starts a new behavior action.

Current Door Preference

The 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 selected doors.

Current Room Distance Penalty

The value 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

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occupant travels this distance in the current room, the travel time cost will have doubled.
Setting this value to zero will disable this feature.

5.1.5. Output Tab

The Output tab provides the Print CSV Data option. When checked, additional CSV output data is
generated for each occupant using this profile. The file contains data for each time step, such as
occupant speed, location, etc. For more information, see Section 14.8.

Enabling this feature may cause the simulation to use significantly more
NOTE resources, including CPU and disk space. It may be better to only enable this
feature for specific occupants. To do this, see Section 5.1.9.

5.1.6. Advanced Tab

The Advanced tab provides the following parameters:

Acceleration Time
Is a Steering Mode parameter that specifies the amount 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 [stem eb9c27c75009d0aa1831f5987bce4867]. The occupant
uses a separate reverse acceleration of [stem 50c6c1635babf023970caf011006f52a] and a
separate lateral acceleration of [stem fde79c59b4226eeeb764719c2866a97b].

Persist Time
The amount of time an occupant will maintain an elevated priority when trying to resolve
movement conflicts. See the (Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.) for more details.

Collision Response Time

The distance ahead at which an occupant will start recording a cost for colliding with other
occupants when steering. It is multiplied by an occupant’s current speed to calculate the
recording threshold. As an example, with the default value of 1.5 s and the default maximum
speed of 1.19 m/s, the occupant will look ahead 1.785 m from their current position to detect
potential collisions and calculate costs.

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.

Wall Boundary Layer

Specifies the distance that occupants try to maintain with walls and other static obstructions.

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Personal Distance
The desired distance one occupant will try to maintain with others in a queue. This may be
entered explicitly as a distance, from queue area, or from queue density. When entered as a
distance, it is defined as the gap distance between the occupants' shapes rather than their
center-to-center distance. If entered as an occupant area, the personal distance is calculated
based on sphere packing: [stem 16ca23b213c657741726ba93e526ab4e] Where [stem
3e18a4a28fdee1744e5e3f79d13b9ff6] is personal distance, [stem
44bc9d542a92714cac84e01cbbb7fd61] is the occupant area, and [stem
2103f85b8b1477f430fc407cad462224] is the occupant’s shoulder width. Personal distance is
calculated similarly when entered as occupant density, except that [stem
c2be5eb22f6ed300bc45b6e849e51b8c] where [stem 6dec54c48a0438a5fcde6053bdb9d712] is
occupant density.

When personal 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
NOTE be fairly close when occupants are queued. It is also not accurate for maintaining
large distances between occupants (> 1 m, center-to-center). If a larger separation
distance is desired, use Social Distancing instead.

Social Distancing
Enables or disables Pathfinder’s social distancing model for the occupant profile. When
enabled, the desired social distance can be set as a constant value or a distribution of values,
enabling occupants to have different desired social distances. Social distance is defined
differently than Personal Distance in that it is the center-to-center distance between
occupants, whereas the personal distance is the gap distance between their shapes. In addition,
social distance is enforced more strictly than personal distance and is more useful for
maintaining larger distances between occupants (> 1 m).

By default, occupants in movement groups do not perform social distancing with

other members of their group. To enable social distancing with other group
NOTE members, check the Enforce social distancing between group members box in
the Movement Groups property panel or the Edit Movement Group Template
dialog (see Section 8.1).

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 (see
Section 5.1.7).

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

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being created and editing the Profile box in the property panel.

5.1.6.1. Advanced Speed Properties

In most cases, users only need to enter the maximum speed of an 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 2019), which takes into account the type of terrain being traversed (stairs, ramps, etc.)
and the density of surrounding occupants. See the (Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.) 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. In the 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 91.

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Figure 91. Editing advanced speed properties

This will open the Advanced Speed Properties dialog as shown in Figure 92.

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Figure 92. Advanced Speed Properties dialog

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 Properties dialog are
ignored.

Clicking Reset to Defaults in the Advanced Speed Properties dialog will reset all advanced
speed properties to their default values in Pathfinder.

Each tab in the dialog allows the customization of occupant speed on each terrain type in
Pathfinder, including Level Terrain, Stairs, and Ramps.

5.1.6.1.1. Level Terrain Tab

The Speed Density Profile 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:

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

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surrounding occupant density. The values are entered in the Speed-Density Profile dialog as
shown in Figure 93. The profile is 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.

The loaded SFPE profile has a minimum value of 15% of the occupant’s maximum
NOTE
speed. This ensures that occupants will not become stuck at high densities.

Figure 93. Speed-Density Profile Dialog

5.1.6.1.2. Stairs Tab

The following properties may be entered in the Stairs tab:

Speed Fraction Up
Defines a speed factor when the occupant travels up stairs.

Speed-Density Up
Defines the speed-density profile to use when the occupant travels up stairs.

Speed Fraction Down

This specifies the speed fraction when the occupant travels down stairs.

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Speed-Density Down
This specifies the speed-density profile to use when the occupant travels down stairs.

The above parameters define a factor that is multiplied by occupant’s maximum speed to
determine their speed up or down stairs.

The factor may be specified in one of three ways:

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 the 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. The function is entered as a piece-wise linear function.

Additionally, the Speed-Density Up and Speed-Density Down parameters have the From Level
Terrain option. This option forces the occupant to use the same speed-density profile as specified
on the Level Terrain tab when the occupant travels up or down stairs.

5.1.6.1.3. Ramps Tab

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 than step slope. The geometric slope is determined per triangle in the
resulting navigation mesh and depends on the triangle’s normal direction.

5.1.7. Stochastic Parameters

Many parameters, including speed, can be specified by a constant value or in terms of a
probability distribution.

Pathfinder supplies inputs for the following distributions:

Table 6. Distribution Options

Distribution Description

Constant Specifies a constant value.

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Distribution Description

Uniform Generates random values that are uniformly distributed between the
specified minimum and maximum parameters.

Normal Generates random values that are normally distributed from the specified
mean and standard deviation, as shown in the following equation: [stem
229309b0d2ea9ffb194750e226e00822]
Where [stem 07617f9d8fe48b4a7b3f523d6730eef0] and [stem
8cda31ed38c6d59d14ebefa440099572] are the mean and standard deviation,
respectively, and x is a random number from a standard normal distribution.
Generated values are bounded by the minimum and maximum parameters.

Lognormal Generates random values that are lognormally distributed from the specified
location andscale parameters, as shown in the following equation: [stem
2ac109f297c7de380238592e2c9ac640]
Where [stem 07617f9d8fe48b4a7b3f523d6730eef0] and [stem
8cda31ed38c6d59d14ebefa440099572] are the location and scale parameters,
respectively, and x is a random number from a standard normal distribution.
Generated values are bounded by the minimum and maximum parameters.

5.1.8. 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.

2. 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.

6. Pathfinder assigns the occupant a new maximum speed of .6 m/s, which is used for all

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subsequent simulations.

7. The user randomizes the occupant, and Pathfinder assigns a new maximum speed of .91 m/s
to the occupant.

5.1.9. Customizing Occupants

When occupants are selected, their property panel appears as shown in Figure 94. 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.

Percentage-based distributions can also be used to assign occupant profiles and behaviors to a
group of occupants, see Section 5.5.

Customized properties will be overwritten if an occupant switches their profile during simulation,
see Section 5.3.3.8.

In versions of Pathfinder prior to 2012.1, individual parameters could not be

NOTE
customized. If one parameter was to be customized, all had 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.

Figure 94. 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.

5.1.10. Profile Libraries

Profiles can be saved and reused using profile libraries (Figure 95). Profile libraries are managed
in the Profile Libraries dialog. To open the Profile Libraries dialog, on the Edit Profiles dialog,
click Add From Library Alternatively, the Profile Libraries dialog can also be opened by clicking
Edit Profile Libraries on the Model menu.

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Figure 95. Profile Libraries Dialog

The list on the left side of the dialog shows all profiles contained in the current Pathfinder model.
The list on the right side of the dialog shows all profiles stored in the profile library. Profiles can
be moved between the lists using the buttons in the middle of the dialog. Create New Library
clears the list of library profiles so that a new library can be created. Load Library opens a profile
library from file. Pathfinder supports loading profiles from profile library files (PLIB) and from
standard Pathfinder model files (PTH).

To create a Pathfinder library file (PLIB) based on profiles in the current model:

1. Click Create New Library to create a new empty library.

2. Use the arrow buttons to copy profiles from the current model to the library.

3. Click Save Current Library

The dropdown menu on the right side of the dialog can be used to load predefined libraries. To fill
the predefined libraries box, Pathfinder scans two locations: a folder in the Pathfinder installation
shared by all users and a folder in the current user’s APPDATA path, see Table 7.

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Table 7. Pathfinder Library Locations

PLIB File Location Suggested Use

C:\Program Files\PyroSim 20XX\lib\profiles Built-in libraries included with Pathfinder.

(or alternate install folder) Administrator access is required to modify this
location. Changes to PLIB files from this
location will affect all users sharing the
computer.
%APPDATA%\Pathfinder\profiles Recommended location for storing PLIB files.
Non-admin users have write access to this
folder. Changes to PLIB files in this location will
affect only the current user.

All predefined profile libraries are opened as read-only to prevent accidental modification. To
modify a library, you will need to resave to overwrite the existing PLIB file. See Appendix A, for
more information on the occupant profiles provided with Pathfinder.

5.2. Vehicle Shapes

An occupant can be assigned a vehicle to use throughout the simulation. When using a vehicle, an
occupant uses the shape of the vehicle rather than the default cylinder shape when performing
collision detection. Any convex polygon can be used as the vehicle shape.

Vehicle shapes are not intended to be used as shapes of regular occupants. A vehicle movement is
fundamentally different from an occupant movement. Unlike regular occupants, vehicles are not
allowed to move sideways. Consequently, the vehicles follow a different path, which accounts for
this movement restriction. Vehicles also avoid collisions with other occupants and walls
differently from regular occupants. Finally, vehicle movement uses more complex calculation,
which can increase the run time of the simulation.

The vehicles can be created and customized in the Edit Vehicle Shapes dialog (Figure 96). To open
the Edit Vehicle Shapes dialog: on the Model menu, click Edit Vehicle Shapes.

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Figure 96. The Edit Vehicle Shapes Dialog

The Description box provides a place to enter descriptive text. This value is not used outside the
Edit Vehicle Shapes dialog.

Height
Specifies the height of the vehicle shape.

3D Model
Specifies the avatar to display for the vehicle when viewing occupants as people. This 3D
model is shown in addition to the 3D model specified in the occupant’s profile. If <shape> is
chosen as the 3D model, an extruded polygon is used as the 3D model for the vehicle. The color
of the extruded polygon will match the color of the occupant. Custom avatars can also be
imported as described in Section 4.5.

Occupant Animation
The animation that should be used for the occupant using the vehicle.

Default
Uses the occupant’s normal animation as if they are not using a vehicle.

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Wheelchair
Makes the occupant look like they’re using a wheelchair.

Bed
Makes the occupant appear to be lying flat on their back.

Occupant Offset
Specifies how far the occupant’s 3D model should be moved to line up with the vehicle’s 3D
model. A value of (0,0,0) will put the occupant’s 3D model at the vehicle’s origin as shown in
the vehicle preview.

Points
Specify the shape of the vehicle as projected onto the ground. The shape must be specified as a
convex polygon. All changes in this list are displayed in the vehicle preview to the right.

Pivot
Specifies the position of the pivot, which is a point around which the vehicle shape rotates. The
pivot can lie inside or outside of the vehicle shape.

Positions of attached occupants

Specify the locations where an assistant can attach in order to move the vehicle. This is only
needed for assisted evacuation and is ignored if the occupant using the vehicle never requests
assistance (see Chapter 7 for more information). All changes in this list are displayed in the
vehicle preview to the right.

Shape Area
Shows the area of the vehicle shape. This area is used for occupant density calculations.

Corresponding Occupant Count

Shows how many regular occupants fit inside the vehicle shape. This amount is used to
determine whether occupants will fit in rooms that they are about to enter. For example, if an
elevator has a nominal load of 10 people, then a bed, which corresponds to 12 people, will not
be able to fit inside. Note that the corresponding occupant count is not used for occupant
density calculation in SFPE mode.

The Vehicle Preview shows a graphical preview of the projected shape of the vehicle and
provides additional capability to add, remove, and change points of the vehicle shape, the pivot
location, and the positions of attached agents.

The dashed lines depict the horizontal and vertical axes. Their intersection (by default point x=0,
y=0) is the pivot of the vehicle, around which the vehicle body rotates. The red arrow points in the
direction of the movement of the vehicle. The pivot can be moved both inside and outside of the

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vehicle shape.

A point can be added to the vehicle shape or positions of attached occupants by right clicking
inside the graphical editor. When moving the cursor close to a point, the point changes its color to
orange indicating that it can be selected. A selected point changes its color to yellow. This selection
is also displayed in the point editors on the left side of the dialog.

Any point can be moved by selecting and dragging, and it can be deleted by right clicking and
selecting the Delete Point option. Mouse wheel can be used to zoom in and out, and mouse
dragging can be used to move around. Reset View button resets the view so that all points are
visible. The Undo/Redo buttons can be used to undo/redo any action within the 2D Graphical
Editor.

A warning will appear at the bottom of the dialog in case constraints like minimum number of
points in the vehicle shape, convexity, distance of assisting occupants from the vehicle shape etc.
are violated.

For more information about the navigation of polygonal shapes in Pathfinder see the Pathfinder
Technical Reference (Pathfinder Technical Reference, n.d.).

5.3. Behaviors
Behaviors in Pathfinder represent a sequence of actions the occupant will take throughout the
simulation. Once they occupant has completed all actions, they are removed from the simulation.
Actions may be added that can make the occupant wait or travel to a destination, such as a room,
point, or exit.

The last destination for the occupant can be thought of as the occupant’s sink. 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.

5.3.1. Creating a New Behavior

To create a new behavior:

1. 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 97.

2. 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.

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Figure 97. New Behavior dialog

With the new behavior selected, the behavior property panel will appear as shown in Figure 98.

Figure 98. Behavior Property Panel

Initial Delay
Specifies an initial delay that makes the occupant wait at their starting position before moving
to the next action. If this link is clicked, it will show a dialog where different distribution
curves can be entered for the delay, similar to those discussed in Profiles.

5.3.2. 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 99) 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.

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Figure 99. 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 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. If the action is an ending action (includes all
actions below the separator in the behavior actions list), the action will always be added at the
end. If the behavior already has an ending action, it will replace the existing ending action.

Actions always occur in the order shown in the Navigation View. For instance, as shown in Figure
100, an occupant using "Behavior1" would first go to any elevator, then go to "Room00", then wait
for 20 seconds, then go to "Room09". After reaching "Room09", the occupant will be removed from
the simulation. The actions can be reordered at any time by dragging and dropping an action in
the list in the Navigation View.

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Figure 100. Example of action order for a behavior

All actions must end with an ending action. These can be identified in the
NOTE
behavior actions list as those below the separator.

5.3.3. Behavior Action Types

Table 8. Behavior Actions Summary

Action Ending Description

Action
?

Goto Waypoint No Specifies that an occupant should go toward a specific point on the
navigation mesh.

Goto Rooms No Specifies that an occupant must select a room out of a set, and go to it.

Goto Elevators No Tells an occupant to use evacuation elevators.

Goto Queue No Specifies that an occupant should join a designated Queue.

Wait No Tells an occupant to wait in their current location for a specified

amount of time.

Wait Until No Instructs an occupant to delay their movement until a specified

simulation time passes.

Change No Instructs an occupant to change a behavior to a new behavior picked

Behavior randomly from a behavior distribution.

Change Profile No Instructs an occupant to change to a different profile picked randomly

from a profile distribution.

Assist Occupants No Instructs the occupant to join an assisted evacuation team and begin
assisting occupants who request assistance from that team.

Wait For No Indicates that the occupant should wait for assistance from other
Assistance occupants.

Detach from No Detaches a client from their assistants, allowing the assistants to
Assistants continue helping other clients.

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Action Ending Description

Action
?

Resume Prior Yes Instructs the occupant to continue using the behavior prior to the
Behavior current behavior.

Remove Yes The occupant will be removed from the simulation.

Occupant

Wait Until Yes The occupant will wait in their current location until the end of the
Simulation End simulation.

Goto Refuge Yes Instructs the occupant to go to one of a set of rooms marked as refuge
Rooms areas.

Goto Exits Yes Instructs an occupant to take the fastest route to a set of exits.

5.3.3.1. The 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:

1. Click the Goto Waypoint button from the behavior actions list

2. Enter the Location or click a point on the model

3. Enter the Arrival Radius or drag the mouse after you click the location to specify the radius

These parameters can be entered manually in 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.

5.3.3.2. The 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 are 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 to reach.

To add a Goto Rooms action:

1. Click the Goto Rooms button from the behavior actions list.

2. Click the Rooms link to specify the rooms with a dialog (see Section 2.6.1 for help using the

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Object Sets dialog), or left-click the desired rooms in the 3D or 2D View.

3. Right-click in the 3D/2D View to finish selecting the rooms and create the action, or click
Create.

5.3.3.3. The 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 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:

1. Click the Goto Elevators button from the behavior actions list.

2. Either click the Elevators link to specify the desired elevators with a dialog (see Section 2.6.1
for help using the Object Sets dialog), or left-click the desired elevators in the 3D or 2D View.

3. Right-click in the 3D/2D View to finish selecting the elevators and create the action, or click
Create.

5.3.3.4. The Goto Queue Action

A Goto Queue action specifies that an occupant must select a Queue out of a set, and go to it. When
using this action, the selected Queue will direct the occupant’s movement through available queue
paths and service points and then releasing the occupant to the next behavior action once it is
complete.

To add a Goto Queue action:

1. Click the Goto Queues item from the Add Action dropdown list.

2. Click the Queue link to select the queues with a dialog (see Section 2.6.1 for help using the
Object Sets dialog). Both queues and queue groups can be selected. If a queue group is
selected, the queues in that group do not need to be selected. Alternatively, left-click the
desired target queues in the 3D or 2D View.

3. Click the Create button

5.3.3.5. The 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.

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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 the furthest
point in the room away from all active doors. This allows other occupants to enter the room.

If their previous 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.

If the occupant is being assisted, cannot move on their own, and will be left in the
room, the assistants will first move the client away from all doors, even if the
NOTE
doors are inactive, and then the clients will disconnect. See Chapter 7 for more
information on assisted evacuation.

To add a Wait action:

1. Click Wait from the behavior actions list

2. Specify the Wait Time

5.3.3.6. The Wait Until Action

A Wait Until action instructs an occupant to delay their movement until a specified simulation
time passes. This action is useful for synchronizing movement of many occupants at a time.
Occupants fill space during a Wait Until action per the same rules described for the Wait action.
Wait Until actions can be specified using three different approaches: occupants can wait until a
specific time, the next in a list of times, or the next time in a periodic function.

To add a Wait Until action:

1. Click Wait Until from the behavior actions list.

2. Click the time to edit the value, which will show the Wait Until Time dialog as shown in
Figure 101.

3. Choose a sub-action from the drop-down.

4. Specify the required parameters.

5. Click OK on the Wait Until Time dialog.

6. Click Create.

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Figure 101. Wait Until Time dialog

Within the Wait Until Time dialog, there are three sub-actions available:

Wait until a specific time

This action tells occupants to wait in their current location until the simulation time passes the
specified time. If the time has already passed when the occupant begins this action, they will
immediately proceed to their next action.

Wait until next scheduled time

This action allows the user to specify a list of wait times. When an occupant begins the wait
action, they compare the simulation time to the list of specified times, and wait until the first
time greater than the simulation time. If the simulation time is greater than any specified time,
the occupant immediately proceeds to the next action.

Wait until next periodic time

This action sets up a periodic list of times.

Time offset
Specifies the first entry in the time list.

Time interval
Specifies the delay between times in the list.

The list of times is then generated from these parameters. For example, if Time offset is set to 60
s, and the Time interval is set to 10 s, the list of times will be [60, 70, 80, 90, 100, …]. Similarly to
the Wait until next scheduled time action, when the occupant begins this action, they will pick the
next time in the list and wait until that time passes.

Both the Time offset and Time interval may be specified as distributions. In this case, each
occupant will be given a unique list of times to choose from. For instance, if the Time offset is set
to a uniform distribution of [50,60] and the Time interval is set to be constant at 10 s, one
occupant may get the list, [52.3, 62.3, 72.3, 82.3, …], and another occupant may get the list

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[59.2, 69.2, 79.2, 89.2, …].

5.3.3.7. The Change Behavior Action

This action causes an occupant to switch its behavior. After this action, the occupant will start
performing actions from a different behavior. This new behavior is randomly selected from a
given behavior distribution. Besides other behaviors, the same behavior and No Change can also
be selected. If the occupant changes behavior to its current behavior, the behavior will be
restarted. If the occupant selects to make No Change, the Change Behavior action will have no
effect. It is possible to create loops in the behavior references. That way the occupant might keep
performing the actions forever (until the end of the simulation). Note that depending on the
specific setup, it is possible that actions that come after a Change Behavior action will not be
performed by the occupant.

See Section 2.6.2 for help specifying behavior distributions.

5.3.3.8. The Change Profile Action

This action causes an occupant to change their profile, which will override all parameters settable
in an occupant profile (Section 5.1). This can be used to change an occupant’s speed, shape, avatar,
etc., throughout a simulation. The chosen profile is selected from a list of possible profiles,
including a No Change item that will prevent the occupant’s profile from changing.

This action will override all occupant parameters as defined in the chosen profile,
NOTE including those that have been customized for a specific occupant (see Section
5.1.9).

For profile parameters that are specified as distributions (e.g. max speed), a given occupant will
always select a value from the same part of the distribution for that parameter. For instance, if a
given occupant starts with a profile whose max speed is a normal distribution, and the occupant’s
th
speed is chosen from the 25 percentile, any subsequent profile changes will also lead to the
th
occupant’s speed being chosen from the 25 percentile of the new speed distribution. This ensures
that if an occupant’s profile is changed, that parameter will remain consistent for the occupant. In
addition, if the parameter does not change with a profile change, the occupant will maintain the
previous value. For value sets, such as occupant avatars, it is guaranteed that the occupant will
maintain the same value only if the new profile uses the exact same set of values as the previous.

Profile changes can also be used to change an occupant’s shape. It can change from a normal
cylinder shape to a vehicle shape. It can also change from one vehicle shape, such as a bed, to
another shape, such as a wheelchair. Because vehicles can be used with assisted evacuation (see
Chapter 7), take care when switching between shapes during assistance. If an occupant is to
change vehicles during assistance, for correct functionality it is best to detach from assistants
before changing shapes using a Detach from Assistants action and then re-attach after changing

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shapes using a Wait for Assistance action.

See Section 2.6.2 for help specifying profile distributions.

5.3.3.9. The Assist Occupants Action

This action is used in assisted evacuation models as discussed in Chapter 7. This action instructs
the occupant to join an assisted evacuation team and begin assisting occupants who request
assistance from that team. When an occupant joins a team, they become an assistant. Once all
occupants requesting assistance have completed their actions for which they wanted assistance,
the assistant will begin their next action.

To add an Assist Occupants action:

1. Click Assist Occupants from the behavior actions list.

2. Specify the assisted evacuation Team that the occupant will join.

3. Click Create.

5.3.3.10. The Wait For Assistance Action

This action indicates that the occupant should wait for assistance from other occupants as
discussed in Chapter 7. This action requires that the occupants using it have a vehicle shape with
at least one attached occupant location as discussed in Section 5.2. When an occupant begins this
action, they are considered to be a client, and assistants will approach the client. The client cannot
move once they begin waiting for assistants until enough assistants attach to the client to fill all
the attached occupant positions. Once all positions are filled, the client begins their next action.
The assistant will stay attached to the client until either the client has completed all subsequent
actions or the client begins a Detach from Assistants action as described below.

To add a Wait for Assistance action:

1. Click Wait for Assistance from the behavior actions list.

2. Specify the Assisting Teams that will assist the client (see Section 2.6.1 for more information)

3. Click Create.

5.3.3.11. The Detach From Assistants Action

This action indicates that the occupant should detach from their assistant as discussed in Chapter
7. When an occupant begins this action, they are considered to be a client, and currently being
assisted in their movement. Once detached, the occupant can proceed to their next behavior
without assistance, only if they do not require assistance to move. This action also allows the
assistant to move on to the next occupant requiring assistance.

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To add a Detach From Assistance action:

1. Click Detach from Assistant from the behavior actions list.

2. Click Create.

5.3.3.12. The Resume Prior Behavior Action

This action resumes the Behavior prior to the current behavior. It can only be used for behaviors
that are the target of a Change Behavior action. For instance, suppose Behavior A has the
following actions:

1. Goto RoomA

2. Change Behavior <Behavior B>

3. Exit <any>

And Behavior B has the following actions:

1. Wait 20 s

2. Resume prior

The Resume Prior Behavior action will cause the occupant to follow this sequence of actions:

1. Goto RoomA (from Behavior A)

2. Wait 20 s (from Behavior B)

3. Exit <any> (from Behavior A)

If a behavior ends with a Resume Prior Behavior action, the behavior cannot be
NOTE directly referenced by an occupant or occupant source. It can only be referenced
by a Change Behavior action.

To add a Resume Prior Behavior action:

1. Click Resume Prior Behavior from the behavior actions list.

5.3.3.13. The Remove Occupant Action

Removes the occupant from the simulation. The occupant will no longer be visible or interact with
any other remaining occupants.

To add a Remove Occupant action:

1. Click Remove Occupant from the behavior actions list.

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5.3.3.14. The Wait Until Simulation End Action

The occupant will wait in their current location until all other occupants finish their behavior
actions or also start a Wait Until Simulation End action. The manner in which the occupant waits
is similar to the Wait and Wait Until actions.

As with the Wait action, if the occupant is being assisted, cannot move on their
own, and will be left in a room, the assistants will first move the client away from
all doors, even if the doors are inactive, and then the clients will disconnect,
NOTE
allowing assistants to help other clients. The client will then wait without
assistance for the remainder of the simulation. See Chapter 7 for more
information.

To add a Wait Until Simulation End action:

1. Click Wait Until Simulation End from the behavior actions list.

5.3.3.15. The Goto Refuge Rooms Action

This action instructs the occupant to go to one of a set of rooms marked as refuge areas as
discussed in Section 3.2.5. Like the Goto Exits action, this action must be the last action in the
behavior. When an occupant reaches the refuge area, they will remain in the simulation and wait
for the simulation to complete. Their behavior while waiting is described in the Wait action
above. Additionally, the occupant will be tagged with "refuge_reached", as reported in the
Occupants Summary and Occupant History output files as discussed in Section 14.7 and Section
14.8.

This action is created similarly to the Goto Rooms action, except that only rooms marked as refuge
areas may be chosen.

If an occupant using this action is being assisted by others, the assistants will first
move the client to a parking location and then detach. It is only at this point, that
NOTE
the client is marked with "refuge_reached" and considered finished with the
action.

5.3.3.16. The Goto Exits Action

This action causes an agent to take the fastest route to a set of exits. Like the Goto Refuge Rooms
action, this action must be last in the behavior. Once an agent goes through an exit, they are
removed from the simulation and reported as having exited the model in the Occupants Summary
and Occupant History output files as discussed in Section 14.7 and Section 14.8.

To add a Goto Exits action:

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1. Click Goto Exits from the behavior actions list.

2. Either click the Exits link to specify the desired exits with a dialog (see Section 2.6.1 for help
using the Object Sets dialog), or left-click the desired exits in the 3D or 2D View.

3. Right-click in the 3D/2D View to finish selecting the exits and create the action, or click Create.

5.4. Generating Occupants

Occupants can be added to the simulation in a number of ways. The simulation can either be pre-
seeded with any number of occupants or it can have occupants continuously generated by
occupant sources. When pre-seeding the model, occupants can be placed individually in the 3D or
2D view, distributed in a rectangular region of a particular room, or distributed throughout the
entire area of a room.

5.4.1. Individual Placement

Individual occupants can be added to the model with the Add Occupant tool . Occupants can
only be placed in pre-existing rooms, stairs, and ramps 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 (Figure 102).

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Figure 102. Adding occupants individually

5.4.2. Group Placement

Groups of occupants can be added to the model with the Add Occupant Group tool . The
occupants are distributed throughout this region using parameters in the property panel as
shown in Figure 105.

Once the properties have been specified, click-drag to draw the filling rectangle. Both points of the
rectangle must lie in the same room (Figure 103). When you release the mouse button, the
occupants will be placed within the designated region (Figure 104).

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Figure 103. Selected area for occupants Figure 104. Occupants added to the rectangular
area

When an occupant is selected, the property panel allows the occupant’s name, profile, and
behavior to be edited. All profile parameters are also displayed, showing exactly what value will
be used for that specific occupant. Any of these parameters can be overridden by checking the box
next it and entering the desired value. See Section 5.1.9 for more information.

Figure 105. Add Rectangular Group of Occupants Property Panel

5.4.2.1. Random or 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.

5.4.2.2. Count or 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.

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5.4.2.3. 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 < 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. See Section 2.6.2 for help specifying distributions.

5.4.2.4. Behavior

This option allows the distribution of behaviors to be set and is set by specifying percentages of
each behavior.

5.4.3. Room Placement

In addition to distributing occupants in placement regions, occupants can be distributed
throughout entire rooms.

To do this:

1. Select the desired rooms and choose Add Occupants from the Model menu or the right-click
menu as shown in Figure 106. This will bring up the Add Occupants dialog (Figure 107). For an
explanation of the dialog’s options, please see Section 5.4.2.

2. Click the OK button after selecting the desired options to place occupants and exit the dialog.

Figure 107. Add occupants dialog

Figure 106. Add occupants in context menu

5.4.4. Occupant Sources

Occupant sources define areas in which occupants are generated dynamically throughout the
simulation.

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To add an occupant source, use the Add Occupant Source tool or right click on a door or a room
in the model, and select Add Occupant Source If an occupant source that is attached to a
component is later deleted from the model the user will be notified and the occupant source will
either be attached to a different component or deleted.

There are three options for specifying the physical location of the occupant source within the
model, as shown in Figure 108.

Figure 108. New Occupant Source Options

An occupant source can be defined by a rectangular region or attached to a component in the

model.

From Rectangle
Use this option to draw a box that defines a placement region. This region is intersected with
the navigation mesh, and new occupants are created at random positions in the intersected
areas.

From Door
Use this option to attach the new occupant source to an existing door. The door can be selected
either from the drop-down menu or by clicking on the component in the model. New
occupants will be created at random positions along the door.

• If the door is one-way, the occupants will be placed slightly off of the door toward the one-
way direction.

• If the door is an exit, the occupants are placed slightly inside the model.

• If the door is attached to an elevator, occupants are placed slightly outside the elevator.

From Room
Use this option to attach the new occupant source to an existing room. The room can be
selected either from the drop-down menu or by clicking on the component in the model. New
occupants will be created at random positions inside the room.

5.4.4.1. Parameters of an Occupant Source

Once the location of an occupant sources is defined, additional parameters that relate to the
occupants that are generated can be specified. Figure 109 below shows parameters that can be
specified for an existing occupant source.

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Figure 109. Parameters of an Occupant Source

Flow Rate
Rate in persons per second at which new occupants will be created (Section 5.4.4.1.1).

Enforce Flow Rate

Specifies whether the occupant source should keep generating occupants regardless of how
crowded its area is (Section 5.4.4.1.2).

Profile
Specifies a profile distribution. See Section 2.6.2 for help specifying distributions.

Behavior
Specifies a behavior distribution.

Component
Shows which door or room the occupant source is attached to, if any.

Movement Group Template

Specifies the distribution of movement groups for occupants that are part of a movement
group. An Ungrouped option is available for occupants that will not be part of any movement
group. (See Section 8.4)

5.4.4.1.1. Flow Rate

The rate, in persons per second, at which new occupants will be created. The flow rate can be
either constant or specified as a function from a table. The flow rate table editor is shown in
Figure 111 below. The editor can also be used to automatically construct a periodical step
function. To do so, click the Step function button. The Step Function dialog is shown in Figure 110
below. The editor with a generated step function is shown in Figure 111 below.

The following are the parameters of the step function that can be set in the Create Step Function
dialog:

Flow Rate
Flow rate value when occupant generation is ON.

Initial Delay
The amount of time at the beginning of the simulation until the step function begins.

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On Duration
Amount of time in each period for which occupant generation is turned ON.

Off Duration
Amount of time in each period for which occupant generation is turned OFF.

Number of Cycles
The number of ON/OFF pairs in which occupants are generated. After this, the occupant source
will stop generating occupants.

5.4.4.1.2. Enforce Flow Rate

When Yes is selected, the occupant source will keep generating occupants regardless of how
crowded its area is, which can result in overlapping occupants. When No is selected, the occupant
source will only generate an occupant if the new occupant will not overlap with another
occupant. Otherwise, the occupant source will wait until the next time step to try to generate an
occupant again.

Figure 110. Create Step Function Dialog

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Figure 111. Occupant Source Flow Rate Editor

5.5. Redistributing Profiles and Behaviors

Once occupants have been created, the distribution of profiles and behaviors can be reshuffled
among them.

1. Select occupants, right-click one of the selected occupants either in the Navigation view or
Model view, and then select Properties from the right-click menu. To edit a single occupant or
group, double-click the occupant or group in the Navigation view. The Edit Selected Occupants
dialog will appear as shown in Figure 112.

2. If more than one profile exists in the model, the Profile link can be clicked to edit the
distribution as discussed in Group Placement.

3. If more than one behavior exists in the model, the Behavior link can be clicked to edit its
distribution.

Figure 112. Edit Selected Occupants dialog

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Changing the distribution of profiles or behaviors will not change the number of
NOTE 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.

5.6. Randomizing Occupants' Positions

After occupants have been created, their positions can be changed to new random positions.

To randomize occupants' positions, select one or multiple rooms, and from the right-click menu
select Randomize Occupants' Positions The Randomize Occupants' Positions dialog appears
(Figure 113), providing the option to change room and position settings.

• Reposition within Current Room will make each occupant stay in its current room, while
Reposition within Any Selected Room will move occupants freely within selected rooms.

• Random and Uniform options will redistribute occupants randomly or uniformly,

respectively.

After clicking OK, all occupants in the selected rooms will be moved to their newly generated
positions. Occupants' orientation will change too, unless it is defined locally for specific occupants
or set to a constant angle in the occupants' profile.

Figure 113. Randomize Occupants' Positions Dialog

5.7. Reducing Population

It is sometimes necessary to reduce the number of occupants in the model. The number of
occupants can be decreased in each room, stair, ramp, or occupant group automatically.

To reduce the number of occupants in a component or in an occupant group, right click on the
specific object and select Reduce Population A dialog will appear with the option to set the new

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occupant count. The deletion method can also be set.

Pathfinder can either keep random occupants, first occupants in the selection, or last occupants in
the selection.

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Chapter 6. Queues
In Pathfinder, users can define occupant-organizing structures called Queues. These can be
defined as an object that consists of the following:

1. One or more Services

2. One or more Paths, consisting of Path Nodes

Occupants who join a queue will move immediately into an available service, where they will stay
for a user-defined amount of time. If all services in a queue are occupied, occupants will begin to
form a line along the path(s). When occupants finish their wait at the service, they will be released
to their next behavior action while any occupants behind them will move forward in the queue.

As the model runs, queues will attempt to fill their service(s) as soon as they are able, filling in
from occupants who have joined the structure first. If there are multiple Paths waiting for the
Service(s), queues will choose from them evenly.

When it is desired that a particular path always leads into a particular service, it is important to
model the scenario using a single queue. If an occupant has a choice between multiple queues
with a similar structure of paths and services, it is best to specify all of the potential queues in the
Goto Queue behavior action.

Full support for queues with movement groups is not yet available. Occupants in
NOTE
movement groups may become stuck when using queues.

6.1. Services
Services are the destinations of a Queue, defined by a point on the navigation mesh. When an
occupant reaches one, they will wait at this point and then be released to their next behavior
action; associated parameters designate the time for the occupant to wait before the queue
releases them.

Service Time
Amount of time an occupant waits at a service before being released by the queue. The wait
time can be specified by a constant value or as a user-defined distribution.

6.2. Paths
Paths are the routes of a Queue that occupants follow and wait at to reach a service. They are
linear sets of Nodes on the navigation mesh, and occupants will form a line along the path
between the nodes, moving forward to the exit end of the path and to the service when they are

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able.

Once created, paths have the following parameters:

Follow Path
Specifies whether an occupant follows the given path from beginning to end. When checked, a
joining occupant will follow every point on the path before getting to their place or service.
When unchecked, an occupant will go directly to their place in line or at a service.

6.3. Path Nodes

A path’s Nodes are the points in space that defines the route. The points are ordered from top to
bottom in the tree, representing the nodes by distance from a service. They may be shuffled
around or deleted in any order once created. Additional Nodes may be added to or deleted from a
path after the initial path is created. Path Nodes can be moved to modify the path through the
model.

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Chapter 7. Assisted Evacuation

Pathfinder supports assisted evacuation scenarios, in which some occupants may assist other
occupants. This is particularly useful in hospital evacuations and other scenarios where there
may be some disabled occupants who need help for at least part of their journey.

The following is some terminology used in Pathfinder:

Assistant
An occupant who helps other occupants Section 7.1.1.

Client
An occupant who is helped by assistants Section 7.1.2.

Team
A group of assistants Section 7.3.

Assisted evacuation is supported through the behavior system of Pathfinder, allowing a wide
range of scenarios to be investigated.

Some possibilities include:

• Assistants help clients through their entire evacuation, allowing the client to visit multiple
intermediate waypoints or rooms or wait at a location while being assisted.

• Assistants help clients for only part of their evacuation, such as an occupant in a wheelchair
who only needs assistance to descend stairs.

• Assistants help in stages. For example, one team of assistants moves clients to one location and
then another team moves the occupants to another location.

Assisted evacuation is also supported by the occupant source system (see Section 5.4.4), which
allows clients and assistants to be generated by occupant sources.

7.1. Assistance Process Overview

Technical details of the algorithm for assisted evacuation are available in the Pathfinder Technical
Reference (Pathfinder Resources), but a summary from both the assistants' and the clients'
perspectives are given here.

7.1.1. Assistants
Initially, the occupant becomes an assistant of a team based on their Assist Occupants action
(Section 5.3.3.9).

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• The assistant checks whether any current clients or future clients (from an occupant source)
will ever need assistance from them, and, if not, continues on with their next behavior action.

• If the assistant determines clients are available, they will send an offer to assist a client.

• When the client accepts the request, the assistant attaches to the client and becomes passive
until the client detaches.

• When there are no more clients available, the assistant moves on to the next behavior action.

7.1.2. Clients
When the simulation begins, the occupant becomes a client of a team or set of teams based on the
client’s Wait for Assistance action (Section 5.3.3.10) and then the client waits indefinitely for an
assistant from one of those teams to offer assistance. When the client receives an offer, they
choose the closest assistants to assign to all open positions on their vehicle (any extra offers are
rejected).

All subsequent behaviors are processed with assistants attached until one of the following
happens (depending on the terminating action):

• The client encounters a Goto Exits action, in which case they detach from all assistants
shortly before going through the exit and then proceed to go through the exit on their own,
even if they cannot move without assistance. They are then removed from the simulation.

• The client encounters a Goto Refuge Rooms action, in which case the client will go to one of
the rooms. Upon entering the room, the client will proceed to the back of the room, detach
from the assistants, and wait until the simulation completes.

• The client encounters a Wait Until Simulation End action, in which case the client will
immediately detach from assistants before waiting for the end of the simulation. This frees
their assistants to help with other clients.

• The client encounters a Detach from Assistants action, in which case the client detaches from
all assistants and continues on to the next action on their own. (Example: The client is in a
wheelchair and needed assistance down stairs.)

7.2. Preparing Clients

There are some considerations to take into account when preparing clients. Table 9 outlines some
important client-specific parameters that can help achieve a variety of evacuation outcomes.

Table 9. Important parameters to define client behavior

Parameter Location Usage

Wait for Assistance Action Behaviors panel Turns occupant into a "client"

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Parameter Location Usage

Detach from Assistants Action Behaviors panel Allows client to detach from
assistants and make part of
their evacuation journey
individually

Vehicle Shape Occupants panel Wheelchair and hospital bed

are available by default

User-defined vehicles are also

available

Requires Assistance to Move Edit Profiles Dialog The client cannot move
without assistance

Preparing occupants who can become clients can be done as follows:

1. Create a new Behavior for the clients.

◦ Add a Wait for Assistance action to the behavior and specify the team or teams that should
assist the clients.

◦ Add actions that the client should perform while being assisted, such as going to a refuge
room or going to an exit. If a Goto Exits action is added, the assistant will automatically
detach from the client before the client goes through the door, allowing the assistant to
continue helping other clients.

◦ If the client should perform part of the journey on their own, add a Detach from Assistants
action to the behavior and then add the actions that will be performed individually.

2. Create the occupant.

◦ Assign the client behavior.

◦ Choose a Vehicle Shape for the client (see Section 5.1.9 and Figure 114) by editing the
Shape parameter on the occupant properties panel. All clients must have a vehicle shape
(see Section 5.2). Either choose a default shape or define a custom shape with user-defined
positions for assistants.

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Figure 114. The Shape Dialog where a user may select a vehicle shape for a client

7.3. Preparing Assistants

Preparing occupants who can become assistants can be done as follows:

1. Create a new Behavior for the assistants.

2. Add an Assist Occupants action to the behavior and select the Team on which the occupant
should assist (if no team is selected the default team will be used).

3. Create the occupant or occupant source and assign the Behavior.

7.4. Preparing Teams

Any number of assisted evacuation teams may be created. Assistants join teams through their
behaviors and clients ask for assistance from teams through their behaviors. By default, assistants
join the default team.

Assistants may only be a member of one team at a time, but they may be a member of several
teams during the course of the simulation. This is accomplished by using an Assist Occupants
action for each team in the assistant’s behavior.

To edit assisted evacuation teams, on the Model menu, click Edit Assisted Evacuation Teams
(see Figure 115)

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Figure 115. The Edit Assisted Evacuation Teams dialog

On the Priority tab, Client Priority controls the order in which clients are evacuated by a team.

The priority can be specified as follows:

Distance to assistants
Assistants on the team will choose the closest client to them.

Specified in the list below

Allows the client ordering to be specified directly by adding clients to a list. Clients in the list
are given priority over those absent from the list. The clients in the list are assisted according
to the list order. Those absent from the list are assisted based on distance. Once an assistant
chooses a client, they are locked into the choice.
For example, say there are three clients listed in the order shown in Figure 115 – "00003",
"00018", "00007".
The following behavior may occur:

1. Client "00018" requests help from "Default Team", but no other clients have yet requested
assistance.

2. An assistant helping with "Default Team" chooses to assist client "00018".

3. As the assistant is heading toward "00018", client "00003" requests assistance from the

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team.

4. The assistant continues on toward "00018", ignoring the request from "00003".

5. Once client "00018" is helped, the assistant heads toward "00003".

Any occupant can be added to this list, even if their behavior never requests
NOTE
assistance. In this case, they are simply ignored.

The Assistants tab is read-only and shows all assistants who currently have a behavior that joins
the team with an Assist Occupants action at some point in the simulation. You must use an Assist
Occupants action to add an assistant to this list.

The Clients tab is read-only and shows all clients who currently have a behavior that requests
assistance from the team with a Wait for Assistance action at some point in the simulation. You
must use a Wait for Assistance action to add a client to this list.

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Chapter 8. Occupant Grouping

Movement groups are used to keep occupants together during the simulation. This feature can be
used to explicitly link occupants present at the start of the simulation and can also be used with
occupant sources to link occupants inserted during the simulation. The first case might be used in
a simulation that begins with families already seated together in a theater and the second might
be used to simulate group arrivals via railway car.

Occupants that are part of a group remain grouped during the entire simulation – there is no
facility for leaving and joining groups. In addition, to be members of the same group, occupants
must use the same behavior.

While occupant movement groups can be used to create simulations that have the appearance of
more realistic behavior, specific data about grouping is generally unavailable in validation studies
and the relationship between movement times and specific grouping parameters is unknown.
Because grouping adds constraints and never increases the individual movement speed of an
occupant, it should generally produce more conservative (i.e. slower) simulation times than the
ungrouped equivalent. However, if using groups in an evacuation simulation, it is highly
recommended to run the simulation both with and without grouped occupants to identify the
impact of occupant groupings on evacuation times.

For output associated with grouped movement, see Section 14.9.

8.1. Grouped Movement

Grouped movement is controlled by two concepts: connected state and the group leader. If a
group is in a "disconnected" state, occupants will walk toward the leader. If a group is in a
"connected" state, occupants move toward the goal dictated by their behavior. This framework
allows groups that have become broken up to re-form and avoids imposing to harsh movement
restrictions related to divided doors and other minor navigational differences.

The details of these behaviors are controlled by the following four parameters:

Follow Leader
This parameter makes it possible to manually specify the occupant that will be used as the
group leader throughout the simulation. If left unset, the simulator automatically selects a
leader and the leader may change over time. The group member nearest the current goal, as
specified by behavior, will become the leader.

Maximum Distance
This parameter is used to determine if a group is connected or disconnected. If any part of the
group is more than Maximum Distance away from any other part, the group is considered

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disconnected. More specifically, the longest edge in the minimum spanning tree connecting all
occupants in the group must be less than or equal to Maximum Distance for the group to be
considered connected.

Slowdown Time
This parameter is used by the leader when a group has become disconnected. The leader will
gradually reduce speed before coming to a stop. Slowdown Time determines how long the
leader will slow down before stopping.

Enforce Social Distancing Between Group Members

This parameter is used to enforce Social Distancing between group members (see Section
5.1.6). By default, social distancing is not enforced within the group, but group members will
social distance with occupants not in their group.

Smaller values for Maximum Distance and Slowdown Time give more cohesive groups and larger
values give looser groups.

Group members share component restrictions (see Section 5.1.2). If a component is restricted for
some group member, other group members will avoid the component as well.

8.2. Movement Groups

Movement Groups represent groupings of specific occupants that exist at the start of the
simulation. They are listed in the Tree view within the Movement Groups node. They also appear
in the property panel when selecting occupants belonging to the same Movement Group. Clicking
the name of a Movement Group in the property panel will select it in the Tree view.

To create a Movement Group:

1. Select all occupants that will be members of the group.

2. Right click to activate the pop-up menu, click New Movement Group from Selection.

The new Movement Group will appear in the Tree view within the Movement Groups node. The
Movement Group parameters (e.g. Maximum Distance) can be edited by selecting the Movement
Group in the tree.

Manually creating individual Movement Groups is likely only necessary for special cases.
Movement Group Templates offer a way to automatically create Movement Groups.

8.3. Movement Group Templates

Rather than describing a specific set of occupants that will move together, Movement Group

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Templates describe a kind of Movement Group. An example might be "Families, with 1-2 adults
and 1-3 children". Pathfinder can use these descriptions to automatically create large numbers of
Movement Groups from selections of occupants or during the simulation.

In addition to the three movement parameters described earlier, Movement Group Templates
require occupant profile-based creation parameters:

Number of Members
This option can be used when control over the specific profiles used to form the group is not
required. It specifies constraints on group size.

Numbers of Members per Profile

This parameter can be used to specify group size constraints along with profile requirements.

Leader’s Profile
This option can be used to force the permanent leader to be selected from a specific profile.
This option is only available when the Number of Members per Profile option is used and the
Follow Leader option is selected.

To create a Movement Group Template:

1. On the Model menu, click Edit Movement Group Templates

2. Click New

3. Type a name for the template and then click OK.

The new template will be added to the Tree view in the Movement Group Templates node. The
created template can now be used to automatically create movement groups.

When Pathfinder uses Movement Group Templates to sort occupants into movement groups, the
algorithm is controlled by the following parameters:

Movement Group Templates

This is the distribution of templates that should appear in the resulting movement groups.
Click the blue text to edit the distribution. For example, a theater seating area might include
60% groups of 1-4 adults, and 40% groups of families. See Section 2.6.2 for help specifying
distributions.

Restrict Members to the Same Room

This parameter is active by default and enforces a rule that all members of a group must share
the same starting room.

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Distance Calculation
The group creation algorithm attempts to form groups from clusters of occupants standing
near each other. Clusters are identified using either Travel Distance, which takes walls and
other obstacles into account, or Geometric Distance. Geometric Distance is fast because it uses
a simple distance calculation, but it may have the undesirable consequence of grouping
occupants that are nearby, but on different floors. A height multiplier can be used to
discourage the algorithm from grouping occupants located up or down a floor. For example,
using a multiplier of 10 would make a 3.0 meter difference in Z effectively a 30.0 meter
difference for purposes of the distance calculation.

To create Movement Groups using a template:

1. Select all occupants that should be sorted into groups. All selected occupants must share the
same behavior.

2. Right-click and on the pop up menu, click New Movement Group(s) from Template

3. The New Movement Group(s) from Template dialog offers various options that provide
control over how Pathfinder will sort the selected occupants into groups.

4. Adjust parameters as required and click OK.

The new movement groups will be added to the Navigation view in the Movement Groups node
and the parameters of individual groups can be edited if required.

When using the New Movement Group(s) from Template action, it is important to note that
occupant profiles will be reset by the operation.

8.4. Adding Grouped Occupants from Occupant

Sources
Sources insert occupants into the model while the simulation is running. By default, sources do
not use groupings when adding occupants. Movement Group Templates can also be used to create
movement groups dynamically as occupants are added to the simulation from sources. Sources
can create grouped occupants using the following parameter:

Movement Group Template

The distribution of templates that will be used when creating grouped occupants. The default
value is Ungrouped, which means that the generated occupants will not be part of any
movement group. Since groups usually consist of more than one occupant, the source will add
all members of a new group one at a time at the prescribed flow rate until the group has been
completely added. Once complete, the distribution of movement group templates will again be
used to determine grouped (or ungrouped) status of the new occupant.

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To configure an occupant source to add grouped occupants:

1. Select the occupant source.

2. On the property panel, in the Movement Group Template field, click to enter a distribution of
templates to be selected when inserting occupants.

The source will now insert grouped occupants based on the template settings.

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Chapter 9. Attractors
Pathfinder Attractors are objects that can be used to change an occupant’s behavior based on the
occupant’s location. Occupants can have varying levels of awareness of attractors, including by
line of sight to the attractor or by room. They can also have varying susceptibilities to attractors
(see Section 5.1.2 for more information on per-profile and per-occupant settings for attractors).
Once an occupant uses an attractor, they will not use it again for the duration of the simulation.

Attractors are different from the Change Behavior action in that attractors change
NOTE the occupant’s behavior based on location, whereas the Change Behavior action
will change an occupant’s behavior as part of a sequence of events.

9.1. Attractor Behavior

Attractors can change an occupant’s behavior to a simple built-in behavior that waits at the
attractor for a limited time, or it can change the behavior to any other defined in the model. The
occupant’s behavior can be changed permanently if the attractor behavior ends with a terminal
action, such as Goto Exits. Alternatively, the attractor can temporarily interrupt the occupant’s
current action if the attractor behavior ends with a Resume Prior Behavior action. In this mode,
the behavior action that was interrupted by the temporary attractor behavior will be resumed
when the attractor behavior is completed. For instance, if the occupant is using a Goto Rooms
action and is interrupted by an attractor before they reach one of the rooms, the occupant will
perform the attractor behavior and then resume the Goto Rooms action when the attractor
behavior is complete.

9.2. Interrupted Waiting

The Wait and Wait Until actions operate in a specific way when interrupted by a temporary
attractor. When either of these actions is started by an occupant, an ending time is calculated and
never changes, even if interrupted. For instance, if an occupant starts a Wait action at t=63 s, and
they decide to wait for 30 s, the calculated end time is t=93 s. If the occupant is interrupted by a
temporary attractor while waiting, they will complete the attractor behavior and then resume the
wait action. When they resume the wait action, however, the end wait time remains unchanged at
t=93 s. If the current time is already past t=93 s, the occupant will immediately begin their next
behavior action. Otherwise, they will wait until t=93 s before beginning the next action as usual.

In addition, whenever an occupant is interrupted by a temporary attractor while waiting, the

occupant will return to their previous waiting area when they resume the wait action. For
instance, if an occupant is directed to go to a room using a Goto Rooms action and then told to
wait for some time, their waiting area will be the entire room they reached before waiting. If they
are then interrupted by a temporary attractor while waiting, they will return to the waiting room

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when done with the attractor behavior. Similarly, if they had gone to a waypoint instead, they
would return to the waypoint. When the occupant resumes the wait action, the time it takes to get
back to the waiting area counts against the wait time. So if the wait time elapses while they are on
their way back to the waiting area, the occupant will stop travelling to the wait area and begin
their next behavior action.

9.3. Seeking vs. Waiting Interruption

Occupants are interrupted differently depending on whether they are seeking or waiting.

When seeking, as soon as an occupant becomes aware of an attractor, they will calculate a
probability of using the attractor. If they decide to use the attractor, they will use it immediately. If
they decide not to use it, they will remember that decision for as long as they are aware of the
attractor. Once they become unaware again, they will forget the decision. This allows them to give
the attractor another chance if they become aware of the attractor again later.

There is an exception for global attractors (see Section 9.5). Because occupants are
NOTE always aware of global attractors, they will clear their memory of them whenever
they start a new behavior action.

When waiting, as soon as the occupant becomes aware of an attractor, they will calculate a
probability of using the attractor. If they decide to use the attractor, instead of using it
immediately, they will schedule a random time during their wait period at which to use the
attractor. If they do not know how long they will be waiting, such as when using the Wait Until
Simulation End action, they will use the Default Attractor Idle Time property as their wait
period. This property is defined in the Simulation Properties dialog under the Miscellaneous
Parameters tab. As when seeking, if the occupant decides not to use the attractor, they will
remember the decision until they become unaware of the attractor.

9.4. Creating Attractors

To create an attractor, perform the following steps:

1. In the 2D or 3D View, click the Add an attractor drawing tool .

2. Enter the desired Awareness and Behavior for the attractor.

3. Enter any other desired properties for the attractor.

4. If the Awareness is set to Line of Sight or Same Room, or the Behavior is set to Wait at
Attractor, enter a location for the attractor. This can be done by either clicking a location in
the 2D/3D View or by typing in a Location in the property panel. If the Awareness is set to
Line of Sight, click+drag the left mouse button to set a location and control the Influence

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Radius.

5. If the attractor location was not set in the 2D/3D view, click Create in the property panel to
create the attractor manually.

9.5. Attractor Properties

The following properties can be set for an attractor in the property panel, either during creation
or when an attractor is selected:

Awareness
Defines how an occupant becomes aware of the attractor. This can be one of the following
values:

Line of Sight
The occupant must be within the influence radius of the attractor’s location and be able to
trace a straight path on the navigation mesh to the attractor location without hitting any
room boundaries.

Same Room
The occupant must be located in the same room as the attractor’s location.

Specified Rooms
The occupant must be in one of the rooms listed in the Rooms property.

Global
The occupant always knows about the attractor from anywhere in the model.

This Awareness value may lead to excessive use of the attractor, as

occupants clear their decisions about global attractors whenever they start
NOTE
a new behavior action. See Section 9.3 for more information about attractor
memory.

Influence Radius
Defines the area around the attractor’s location where an occupant can become aware of the
attractor when using the Line of Sight awareness option.

Rooms
The set of rooms that define where an occupant becomes aware of an attractor when using the
Specified Rooms awareness option.

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Influence
Helps define the probability that an occupant will decide to use an attractor. This value is
multiplied by the occupant’s susceptibility to attractors to define the probability. See the Profile
Movement tab for more information about defining the occupant’s susceptibility. While this
value is presented as a percentage, the value can actually be greater than 100% to give a strong
preference for the attractor. Likewise, it can be set to 0% to effectively disable the attractor.

Behavior
Defines the behavior that the occupant will use if they decide to use the attractor. The special
value, <Wait at Attractor>, allows for a simple definition of a behavior, where an occupant
will wait at the attractor’s location for a specified amount of time. When using this value, you
do not have to create a separate behavior.

Wait Area Radius

When the behavior is set to <Wait at Attractor>, Wait Area Radius defines the waiting area,
separate from the influence area (defined by Influence Radius). This is the same as setting an
Arrival Radius when specifing a Goto Waypoint action.

Wait Time
When the behavior is set to <Wait at Attractor>, this defines the amount of time an occupant
will wait at the attractor before resuming their behavior prior to using the attractor.

9.6. Attractor Limitations

While attractors work with most behaviors and for most occupants, there are some limitations,
including the following:

• Presently, occupants in Movement Groups will not use attractors.

• Occupants performing the following behavior actions can only be interrupted by attractors in
specific cases:

◦ Assist Occupants - assistants will not be interrupted at any time while performing the
assistance behavior action, even if they are not actively assisting a client.

◦ Wait For Assistance - the client occupant cannot be interrupted while waiting for
assistance, but once they are being assisted, they can be interrupted by attractors.

◦ Goto Queue - occupants will not be interrupted if they are actively going toward a queue
or waiting in line for a queue.

◦ Goto Elevators - Occupants can be interrupted while going to the elevator, but once they
are inside the elevator, they cannot be interrupted until it reaches its destination.

◦ Any action that completes immediately after starting, such as Change Behavior, will not be

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Chapter 10. Views

At any time, the state of the perspective camera can be saved, including its position, orientation,
and zoom. This information is stored in an object called a View. A view can be recalled later in
either Pathfinder or the 3D Results to view the scene from that perspective.

Views appear in Pathfinder 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.

10.1. Creating a View

To create a view, follow these steps:

1. Position the perspective camera using one of the navigation tools as discussed in Section 2.2.1.

2. Create a new view using one of these methods:

◦ On the Model menu, choose New View.

◦ Right-click Views in the Navigation View, and choose New View.

A new view will appear in the Navigation View as shown in Figure 116.

Figure 116. Creating a View

10.2. Recalling a View

To recall a view, perform any of the following:

• Double-click the desired view from the Navigation View.

• Right-click a view from either the Navigation View or the 3D/2D View, and choose Show in 3D
View.

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This will show the 3D View and the perspective camera will be initialized with the state of the
saved view.

10.3. 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 choose Update View.

Alternatively, the graphical representation of the camera can be manipulated to move the location
of the view as discussed in Section 11.2.

10.4. Views in the Results

In order for the views created in Pathfinder to be available in the Results, a special views file is
written to the output folder whenever the simulation is run. When the Results application is
opened, it then reads the views from this file and makes them available in the Results.

Because this file is only automatically written when the simulation is run, however, a view can be
changed in Pathfinder after running the simulation, making it out of sync with the views in the
Results. In order to synchronize the views in Pathfinder and the Results without re-running the
simulation, the views file must be manually written. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Make the desired changes to the view in Pathfinder.

2. On the File menu, choose Save Views File.

3. Save over the existing views file.

4. Re-load the results in the 3D Results Viewer.

10.5. Camera Tours

In previous versions of Pathfinder, tours could also be created inside Pathfinder. This
functionality was later moved to the 3D Results. Tours made in previous versions of Pathfinder,
however, will still appear in the Navigation View of Pathfinder. While they can no longer be
edited within Pathfinder, they can still be deleted. Ones that are not deleted will be written to the
Results views file so that they are available in the Results.

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Chapter 11. 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 through the transform tools as discussed in the following section.

11.1. 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.

11.1.1. Moving
To move one or more objects, select the objects and click the move tool from the 2D or 3D view.
The property panel for the move tool is shown in Figure 117.

Figure 117. Property panel for the translate tool

The object can be moved either manually or graphically:

Manually
Select Normal Mode and enter the distance to offset the object in the Move X, Y, and Z boxes.
Then click Move.

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.

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 above 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.

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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.

Figure 118. Select object and click first point Figure 119. Second click creates array

11.1.2. Rotating
To rotate one or more objects, select the objects and click the rotate tool from the 2D or 3D
view. The property panel for the rotate tool is shown in Figure 120.

Figure 120. Property panel for the rotate tool

The object can be rotated either manually or graphically:

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 Rotate.

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 (Figure 121).

• The second defines a reference vector extending from the rotation base (Figure 122).

• The third defines a second vector extending from the rotation base (Figure 123). The
rotation angle is the angle between these two vectors.

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Figure 121. Base point of Figure 122. Reference line (red) Figure 123. Rotated object
rotation and rotation angle (green)

Objects can also be copied using the rotate tool.

1. Select the rotate tool

2. 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 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 125.

Creating an array of objects using the rotate tool

Figure 124. Select object and click and second line Figure 125. Create array from rotation

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11.1.3. Mirroring
To mirror one or more objects about a plane, select the objects and click the mirror tool from
the 2D or 3D view. The property panel for the mirror tool is shown in Figure 126.

Figure 126. Property panel for the mirror tool

The object can be mirrored either manually or graphically:

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, [stem
b8e8825b9f04f4ea473c4e901f2552c5]. Next click Mirror.

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 128.

Mirroring an object

Figure 127. Select object and draw mirror line Figure 128. Selected objects mirrored over

Objects can also be copied using the mirror tool. To do so, select the mirror 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.

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11.2. 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 129.

Figure 129. Manipulator handles

11.2.1. 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 . Now an individual handle can be
selected by clicking it, which will make the handle property panel appear as shown in Figure 130.
To deselect the handle, press ESC on the keyboard, click anywhere else in the model, or select
another object.

Figure 130. Handle property panel

11.2.2. 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.

Editing with the keyboard

To edit with the keyboard, a handle must first be selected. 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.

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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.

11.2.3. 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.

11.2.4. Thin Door Handles

When a thin door is selected, three handles will be displayed as shown in Figure 131. 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 132.

Figure 131. Thin door with three handles Figure 132. Thick door with six handles

11.2.5. Thick Door Handles

When a thick door is selected, six handles will be displayed as shown in Figure 132. 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).

11.2.6. Stair and Ramp Handles

When a stair or ramp is selected, six handles will be displayed as shown in Figure 133. The four
corner handles each allow the stair/ramp to be moved along the edge to which the handle is

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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 133. Stair/ramp handles

11.2.7. Occupant handle

When an occupant is selected, there is only one handle as shown in Figure 134. 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 134. Occupant handle

11.2.8. Waypoint Handles

When a waypoint is selected, two handles are displayed as shown in Figure 135. The center
handle allows the waypoint to be moved to another location similarly to the occupant handle. The
perimeter of the circle can be used as a handle to change the arrival radius of the waypoint.

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Figure 135. Waypoint handles

11.3. Enabling and Disabling Objects

Several objects in Pathfinder can be enabled or disabled. Disabling an object removes the object
from the model. A disabled object does not appear in the simulation. Following objects can be
enabled and disabled in Pathfinder:

• Occupants

• Occupant sources

• Rooms: disabling a room will automatically disable its occupants and occupant sources; all
connected doors, stairs and ramps will also be disabled.

• Doors: disabling a door will automatically disable its occupant sources.

• Stairs

• Ramps

• Measurement regions

To enable or disable an object, right click on the object in the 3D view or in the navigation tree
and select Enable or Disable. Disabled objects are invisible in the 3D view. In the navigation tree,
disabled objects are greyed out and crossed out.

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Chapter 12. Model Analysis

Pathfinder contains some useful tools to analyze various properties of a model.

12.1. Measurement Regions

Measurement regions cause the simulator to output time history data for velocity and density
within a specific region on the navigation mesh. See Section 14.4 for information about
Measurment Region results.

Measurement regions can be created using the Add a Measurement Region tool .

Figure 136. An example of a measurement region placed in front of an exit door.

Adding one or more density regions will cause the simulator to output a CSV file named
filename_measurement-regions.csv containing data for each density region. The data in this file can
be used to plot fundamental diagrams in the measurement area.

Output frequency for measurement region CSV data is controlled by the CSV Output Freq.
parameter on the Output tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog.

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To ensure accurate results, measurement regions must:

• Intersect exactly one room,

• Not extend beyond the boundary of the room, and

• Not intersect any interior walls within the room.

Essentially, measurement regions should be placed on open space that will be used by occupants.
Ideally, the measurement region should not be larger than the area where the steady flow under
study occurs. If the measurement region is too large, results might indicate a lower value than
expected because the quantity is integrated over the entire region.

For additional information about measurement regions, please refer to the Pathfinder Technical
Reference.

12.2. Measuring Distances

Distances can be measured by using the measuring tool .

To do so, select the measuring tool from the 3D or 2D view. To measure distance along a sequence
of points, left-click each point. After each point in the path has been specified, right-click to display
the cumulative point-to-point distance 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 taking the distance.

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Chapter 13. Simulating

13.1. Parameters
The Simulation Parameters dialog provides a way to control certain features of the simulation, as
well as provide some default values.

13.1.1. Time Parameters

The Time tab (Figure 137) provides the following options:

Time Limit
Can be used to automatically stop the simulation after a set simulation time.

Time Step Size

Controls the resolution of simulation time steps. Increase the time step size to speed up
simulations, reduce the time step size to ensure simulation accuracy.

Figure 137. The Time tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog

13.1.2. Output Parameters

The Output tab (Figure 138) provides the following options:

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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 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.

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.

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.

Jam Velocity
controls the speed threshold at which occupants are recorded as being jammed in the
Occupants output file.

Occupant CSV Data

controls how the CSV data is generated for occupants with Print CSV Data enabled. See Section
14.8 for more information.

Merge into one file

All occupants with CSV data enabled are written to the same file. The file is named
filename_occupants_detailed.csv, where filename is the name of the saved PTH file without
the .pth extension.

Create one file per occupant

Each occupant with CSV data enabled is written to a different file. The file is named,
filename_occupant_id_occname.csv, where filename is the name of the saved PTH file without
the .pth extension, id is the integer id of the occupant assigned by the simulator, and
occname is the name of the occupant specified in the user interface.

Include Seek Speed in Measurement Region Files

controls whether to include an additional column in the measurement region files called
"SeekVelocity", which indicates how fast an occupant is moving relative to the direction of
their goal. For instance, if an occupant wants to move in the +X direction, and they are moving
in the +X direction at 1.2 m/s, this column will show 1.2 m/s; however, if they instead move in

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the +Y direction, this will become 0 m/s because they are not moving toward their goal. NOTE:
This value is always >= 0, even if the occupant is moving backward away from their goal.

Write Occupant Parameter File

Indicates whether to write the Occupant Parameters file. See Section 14.5 for more
information.

Enable Interpersonal Distance Reporting

Enabling this feature will cause the simulator to create two output files:
filename_sd_transient.csv and filename_sd_accumulated.csv. These files report interpersonal
distancing information based how close together occupants are located. The distance
calculation is computationally expensive and adds about 10% to simulation runtime. See
Section 14.6 for more information.

Reference Distance
When interpersonal distance reporting is enabled, this value is used to calculate exposure data
and is reported as SD in filename_sd_accumulated.csv. See Section 14.6 for more information.

Figure 138. The Output tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog

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13.1.3. Paths Parameters

The Paths tab (Figure 139) contains properties that control how occupant paths are generated and
how the navigation mesh is triangulated. Generally, these settings should not be changed.

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.

Navigation Mesh Refinement

Controls whether and how finely the navigation mesh is refined into smaller triangles. The
following values are allowed:

None
Disables mesh refinement. This is the default option and provides the best performance. It
allows Pathfinder to generate the fewest and largest possible triangles, which works well in
most cases with Pathfinder’s search algorithms.

Constrain triangle area

Specifies an upper bound on the area of the triangles in the navigation mesh. In some
situations, smaller triangles can be useful for more accurately determining shortest
distance, which may fix issues where occupants are taking long paths. Smaller values result
in more triangles, which can significantly impact simulation performance, increasing the
time to simulate with more triangles.

Constrain Edge Length

Similar to Constrain triangle area, this results in smaller triangles, which may in some
cases fix issues where occupants are taking long paths.

Max Edge Length

Controls the maximum length of any single edge on a room boundary.

Min Angle
Sets a lower bound on the angle between adjacent triangle edges. Larger values increase
the quality of the triangles, preventing long, thin triangles, but values greater than 30
degrees can cause Pathfinder to "freeze" when it attempts to generate a simulation input
file.

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Figure 139. The Paths tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog

13.1.4. 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.

13.1.4.1. SFPE Mode Parameters

The SFPE mode uses the set of assumptions presented in the Engineering Guide to Human Behavior
in Fire (SFPE 2019) 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.

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Figure 140. SFPE Behavior tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog

The SFPE mode supports the following options:

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 - 3.8 can cause extremely slow evacuation times. Using values above 3.8 pers/m2 can
cause the simulation to become stuck due to the density dependent velocity calculation.

Door Flow Rate→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 Boundary Layer setting of 150 mm, a 1.0
m door would be reduced to a 0.7 m opening giving an [stem
f335bb7424c5581895ef5a1237366742] of (1.32 pers/s-m * 0.7 m) = 0.924 pers/s.

This same Boundary Layer is used when calculating the room density as
NOTE described in the SFPE Mode Parameters section of the Pathfinder Technical
Reference.

Door Flow Rate→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 flow rate in occupants per unit of time.

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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.

Always Use Max Specific Flow

Allows the door to flow at the optimum density. 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.

13.1.4.2. Steering Mode Parameters

The Steering mode is more dependent 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.

Figure 141. The Steering Behavior tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog

The Steering mode supports the following options:

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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.

Minimum flowrate factor

This is used when agents are deciding which doors to use when there are queues at the doors.
The factor is multiplied by the door’s nominal flowrate to determine a minimum observed
flowrate. A non-zero factor will cause a door to always appear to be flowing even if it is not.
This helps prevents occupants from excessively switching doors when flowrates are very low;
however, it can also cause occupants to stick with the same door even if it cannot flow any
more, such as a door into a refuge room that has filled completely near the door. If occupants
are refusing to leave a blocked door into a room when other doors are available, try setting
this parameter to 0.

Collision Handling
Controls whether occupants avoid one another and can collide with each other.

Enable Forced Separation

When enabled, this will cause occupants to attempt to always strictly maintain their Personal
Distance (Section 5.1.6). When disabled, Personal Distance will only apply while queueing.

In Pathfinder 2020.2, this parameter was used experimentally to perform

social distancing among occupants. In Pathfinder 2020.3 and beyond, social
distancing is performed using the Social Distancing parameter in occupant
profiles. Enable Forced Separation may conflict with Social Distancing, so
when loading Pathfinder 2020.2 PTH files that have the Enable Forced
Separation box checked, you will be asked if you want to convert from the
forced separation model to the social distancing model. If you choose to do so,
Enable Forced Separation will be disabled, and all profiles that have a non-
NOTE
default Personal Distance of .08 m will be converted such that the Social
Distance is calculated from the Personal Distance, and the Personal
Distance is set to the default. Because Social Distancing is defined as the
center-to-center distance of the occupants and Personal Distance is the
distance between their shapes, Social Distance is estimated as Personal
Distance plus occupant diameter. If the diameter is specified as a distribution,
the distribution average is used as the diameter. Occupants that override the
Personal Distance setting in their profile will be converted similarly.

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Limit Door Flow Rate

When checked, this imposes a maximum flow rate on doors unless they have it explicitly
turned off (Section 3.4.3). The flow rate 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 flow rates to be based off room density.

13.1.5. Miscellaneous Parameters

The Miscellaneous tab (Figure 142) provides rarely-changed options, including the following:

Show Runtime Visualization

Whether to enable the debug view when running a simulation. This has the same effect as
starting a simulation using Simulation→Debug Simulation.

Save Restart Files

Whether to save a restart file while the simulation is running. Enabling this option will cause a
snapshot of the simulation to be saved periodically to the restart file while the simulation is
running. This is useful for debugging or if the computer loses power while running a
simulation, as the simulation can be resumed from any of the saved snapshots by using
Simulation→Resume Simulation.

Snapshot Interval
Defines how often to save snapshots to the restart file in simulation time (not to be confused
with wall-clock time).

Curve error
Controls how imported curved CAD lines are turned into multi-segmented lines for use in floor
extraction and for display purposes. Smaller error values result in more segments.

Face error
Controls how imported curved CAD faces are turned into triangles for use in floor extraction
and for display purposes. Smaller error values result in more triangles.

Default Attractor Idle Time

When an occupant chooses to use an attractor while waiting an indeterminate amount of time,
this property defines the period in which the occupant will schedule the attractor. See Section
9.3 for more information.

Enable visualized sideways movement of vehicles

Allows vehicles to appear as if they are moving sideways rather than turning as they move.
Enabling this option only changes the visualization and not the simulation of how vehicles
move. If this option is enabled, the vehicle shape must also have the Allow sideways

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movement option checked.

Figure 142. The Miscellaneous tab of the Simulation Parameters dialog

13.2. Starting and Managing a Simulation

To run a simulation: on the Model menu, click Run Simulation . The simulation will begin and
the Run Simulation dialog (shown in Figure 143) will appear.

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Figure 143. 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.

13.2.1. Simulating via Command-line

Simulations can also be run through the command-line without loading the user interface.

1. Open a command prompt.

2. 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.

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The input file can be manually created in the user interface by selecting File › 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, select File › Save Imported Geometry File.

Running a simulation through the command line will not provide a management
NOTE
dialog through which the simulation can be paused and resumed.

13.3. 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.

To stop a simulation:

1. Press Cancel during a simulation in the simulation dialog.

2. Pathfinder will ask the user if a snapshot should be made.

3. After clicking Yes, the current state of the simulation is written to a snapshot file.

To resume the simulation at a later time:

1. In Pathfinder open the model to resume.

2. Go to Simulation › Resume Simulation.

3. Select the time that the simulation was cancelled and click OK.

4. The simulation will resume from this time.

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Chapter 14. Results

14.1. Summary Report
The summary report file contains information about the simulation geometry, simulation
performance, statistics, and usage information for each room, stairway, and door.

Figure 144 shows a portion of an example summary report file.

Figure 144. Listing for an example summary report file.

This file is saved in the simulation directory and given the name filename_summary.txt (where
filename 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 completion times for the occupants. 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

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simulator.

Each statistic is generated by sampling quantities from the occupants as data points. Only
occupants for whom the quantity is relevant are included in the statistic.

Statistics on the following quantities may be printed to the summary file:

Completion Time
The amount of time it takes for an occupant to complete all of their behavior actions.
Occupants are not included in this statistic if they fail to complete all their behavior actions.
This may happen either because they became stuck or they did not finish their actions before
the simulation ending time as specified in the Simulation Parameters dialog.

For occupants who go to a refuge room, they are considered complete as soon
as they reach the refuge room, even though they remain in the simulation
NOTE
until the end. Similarly, occupants who end with a Wait Until Simulation End
action are considered complete as soon as they begin the action.

Travel/Movement Distance
The distance that completed occupants have travelled.

Attractor Usage Time

The amount of time an occupant spent using attractors. If an occupant did not use any
attractors, a special no attractors line is added. This statistic is only provided if there are
attractors in the model.

Some statistics are further broken down by behavior and by profile. For occupants who used
multiple behaviors and/or profiles due to Change Behavior or Change Profile behavior actions,
they are reported according to the behavior or profile in use when they completed their actions.

The table at the end of the summary file 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
component 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). Each component can be annotated with its group names (e.g. floors). This
annotation can be set by selecting Include Group Names in Output in the File→Preferences
dialog.

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14.2. Door History

The door history file (filename_doors.csv, where filename 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:

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.

Remaining (total)
The number of occupants remaining in the simulation.

Exited(total)
The number of occupants that have successfully passed through an exit door (leaving the
simulation).

doorname width(m)
The total width of the specified door.

doorname total boundary(m)

The total boundary layer of the specified door.

doorname [{+/-}{X/Y}]
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.

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 reach a door will not be counted.
This value is only meaningful in SFPE mode.

This file is used to display door flow rate, specific flow, and usage history in Pathfinder.

14.2.1. Door Flow Rate and Specific Flow

To view door flow rate or specific flow, click View Door Flow Rates on the Results menu. This
opens a time history plot for doors as in Figure 145. This plot shows data from the door history
file.

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In the left portion of the window is a list of the doors, and on the right is a graph of the data. For
each door, the list on the left shows three rows: one for each of the two directions and one for
total. The directional data can be hidden by unchecking Include Directional Data under the View
menu. Each row in the list shows group names for each door (if the Include Group Names in
Output option under File→Preferences was enabled in Pathfinder when the simulation was
run). The group names can be hidden by unchecking Show Group Names under the View menu
of the history plot dialog.

Figure 145. 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 are three filtering modes for presenting the flow rate that are selectable through the View
menu:

Raw
this provides raw flow rate, which is simply [stem d5e020fd41765ccb883057193c044ae9],
where [stem 3b221d7a5c7d17ebec518e6041269f5d] is the number of occupants to pass through
the door in an output time step, and [stem 5a8af6f173febd968ef4c52695efcf85] is the output
time step.

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Low-pass Filter
the raw flow rate 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.

Moving-average Filter
the raw flow rate is averaged over a user-specified period.

14.2.2. Door Usage

To view door usage, open the Door Flow Rate 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.

14.3. Room History

The room history file (filename_rooms.csv, where filename is the name of your saved PTH file)
provides the following information columns in each row:

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.

Remaining (Total)
The number of occupants still in the simulation.

Exited (Total)
The number of occupants that have successfully passed through an exit door (leaving the
simulation).

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. Similarly
to door history, the list on the left shows group names for each room (if the Include Group Names
in Output option under File→Preferences was enabled in Pathfinder when the simulation was
run). The group names can be hidden by unchecking Show Group Names under the View menu
of the history plot dialog.

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14.4. Measurement Regions Graph

The measurement region file (filename_measurement-regions.csv, where filename is the name of
your saved PTH file) provides the following information columns in each row:

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.

Density(pers/m^2)
The density in the observation region at a specified output time.

Velocity(m/s)
The speed in the observation region at a specific output time.

SeekVelocity(m/s)
The velocity in the direction of pedestrians’ desired path.

Count(pers)
The counting heads passing within a time interval.

To display this data as a time history and a speed vs density plot, click View Measurement
Regions on the Results menu.

14.4.1. Velocity Mode

To view a speed vs time history graph, click View Measurement Regions on the Results menu,
this is the default mode. To view this mode from other alternative modes, on the Mode menu,
select Velocity. This shows the speed in the observation region(s) in each output time step.

14.4.2. Density Mode

To view a density vs time history graph, click View Measurement Regions on the Results menu,
and on the Mode menu, select Density. This shows the density in the observation region(s) in each
output time step.

14.4.3. Speed vs Density Mode

To view a speed vs density graph, click View Measurement Regions on the Results menu, and on
the Mode menu, select Speed vs Density. This shows how a change of density in the observation
region(s) affects the speed of movement.

The three filtering modes explained earlier could also be applied to measurement region graphs.

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14.5. Occupant Parameters

The occupant parameters file (filename_occupant_params.csv, where filename is the name of your
saved PTH file) provides a summary of the initial states of almost all parameters assigned to each
occupant, such as maximum velocity, occupant radius, etc.

This is useful for verifying the parameter distributions as specified in the occupant profiles (see
Section 5.1 and Section 5.1.7 for more information). This file is written by default but can be
turned off in the Simulation Properties dialog (see Section 13.1.2).

It may take a significant number of occupants (> 1000) for the resulting
distributions to match to input distributions. The greater the number of occupants
NOTE
using a particular distribution, the greater the likelihood that the distributions
will match.

In addition, any occupants that have customized parameters (Section 5.1.9) will invalidate the
distributions. These customized occupants must be manually excluded from the analysis to
determine resulting distributions.

14.6. Interpersonal Distance

The interpersonal distance output files (filename_sd_transient.csv and
filename_sd_accumulated.csv) provide information related to how closly occupants are located
throughout the simulation. Distances are reported as as measured center-to-center.

Pathfinder reports reference distance using a shortest path calculation very

similar to that used for agent navigation. Boundary edges in the navigation mesh
such as walls and separators block the reference distance calculation, partial
NOTE
blockages report the reference distance after routing around the blockage, and all
doors are non-blocking. To model furniture such as a desk or service counter,
rooms with all doors one-way exit only can be used.

filename_sd_transient.csv
CSV-format output file containing transient data about occupant separation. For every CSV
output time and occupant in the simulation, the closest other occupant is listed along with
distance. Additionally, the number and ID of occupants within 1m, 2m, and 3m are listed.

Table 10. Transient Interpersonal Distance CSV File Structure

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Column Name Typ Opti Description

e onal

Time (s) float Simulation time

ID int Unique ID for occupant

Name text x Occupant name from nav view in UI

Group ID int x Unique ID for occupant group, if present

Closest Occupant ID int x ID of closest occupant, if present within 3m

Closest Occupant Name text x Occupant name from nav view in UI, if present within
3m

Closest Occupant Distance float x Distance to closes occupant, if present within 3m

(m)

Occupants Within 1m int Number of occupants within 1 meter

(count)

Occupants Within 1m IDs text x Space-separated list of occupant IDs within 1m

Occupants Within 2m int Number of occupants within 2 meter

(count)

Occupants Within 2m IDs text x Space-separated list of occupant IDs within 2m

Occupants Within 3m int Number of occupants within 3 meter

(count)

Occupants Within 3m IDs text x Space-separated list of occupant IDs within 3m

filename_sd_accumulated.csv
CSV-format output file containing accumulated exposure data for each occupant. For every
occupant in the simulation, the occupant who has spent the longest time within reference
distance is listed, including the occupant ID and the total amount of time. Additionally a count
is made of all occupants who have remained within reference distance of the occupant for
more than 1 minute and 5 minutes, including the occupant IDs.

Table 11. Accumulated Interpersonal Distance CSV File Structure

Column Name Typ Opti Description

e onal

ID int Unique ID for occupant

Name text x Occupant name from nav view in UI

Group ID int x Unique ID for occupant group, if present

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Column Name Typ Opti Description

e onal

SD (m) float Distance used to calculate reference distance exposure.

Longest Occupant ID int x ID of occupant of greatest exposure (longest within

distance SD)

Longest Occupant Name text x ID of occupant of greatest exposure (longest within

distance SD)

Longest Occupant Time (s) float x Time within distance SD of occupant of greatest
exposure

Occupants > 60s (count) int Number of occupants within distance SD for >60 seconds

Occupants > 60s IDs text x Space-separated list of occupant IDs within distance SD
for >60 seconds

Occupants > 300s (count) int Number of occupants within distance SD for >300
seconds

Occupants > 300s IDs text x Space-separated list of occupant IDs within distance SD
for >300 seconds

14.7. Occupants Summary

The occupants' summary file (filename_occupants.csv, where filename 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:

id
A unique integer identifier for the occupant assigned by the simulator.

name
The name given to the occupant in the user interface.

exit time
The time at which the occupant went through an exit door.

active time
The amount of time the occupant was actively seeking a location in the model, such as a
waypoint or exit.

jam time total

Total time the occupant spent moving at less than the Jam Velocity as specified in the

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simulation parameters (see Section 13.1.2).

jam time max continuous

The maximum continuous amount of time the occupant spent at less than the Jam Velocity.

level jam time

Time spent by the occupant moving at less than Jam Velocity on level surfaces.

stair jam time

Time spent by the occupant moving at less than Jam Velocity on stairs.

ramp jam time

Time spent by the occupant moving at less than Jam Velocity on ramps.

start time
The time at which the occupant was generated. For occupants pre-seeded in the model, this is
always 0. For occupants generated by an occupant source, this could be any time.

finish time
The time at which the occupant left the simulation for any reason.

distance
The total distance the occupant travelled during the simulation.

num attractors used

The total number of attractors used by the occupant during the simulation.

attractor time
The amount of time spent by the occupant using attractors.

last_goal_started time
The time at which the occupant started their last behavior action.

+ time
The time at which an occupant with a Goto Refuge Rooms action reached their refuge room
or an occupant with a Wait Until Simulation End action begain waiting. See Section 5.3.3 for
more information.

safe time total

The total amount of time the occupant spent in a refuge room.

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tag:safe time last

The last time the occupant entered a refuge room.

untag:safe time last

The last time the occupant exited a refuge room.

14.8. Occupant History

For each occupant whose profile has CSV data output enabled (Section 5.1), additional time history
data for the occupant is written to a CSV file.

Each row of the file contains the following data for the occupant:

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.

id
The integer identifier of the occupant assigned by the simulator.

name
The name assigned to the occupant in the user interface.

active
Whether the occupant is actively seeking an exit (1 if they are seeking an exit and 0 if not).

x(m), y(m), z(m)

The 3D location of the occupant.

v(m/s)
The velocity of the occupant.

distance(m)
The total distance the occupant has travelled.

location
The occupant’s current room.

terrain type
The terrain type of the occupant’s current room.

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safe
Whether the occupant is in a refuge room.

attractor
The name of the attractor in use by the occupant or blank if the occupant is not using an
attractor.

last_goal_started
Whether the occupant has started their last behavior action.

report_refuge_reached
Whether an occupant with a Goto Refuge Room action has reached their refuge room, see
Section 5.3.3 for more information.

report_wait_until_end
Whether an occupant with a Wait Until Simulation End action has started waiting. See
Section 5.3.3 for more information.

+
Whether report_refuge_reached or report_wait_until_end is true.

For occupants with CSV output enabled, this data may optionally be written to one CSV output file
or one file per occupant. This preference is controlled by the Occupant CSV Data option as
described in Section 13.1.2.

14.9. Groups Output

The groups output file (filename_groups.csv, where filename is the name of your saved PTH file)
provides information about groups that were created before and during the simulation.

Table 12. Groups Output CSV File Structure

Column Name Typ Opti Description

e onal

Group ID int Unique ID for group

Member IDs text Space separated list of numeric group member IDs

Group Name text x For groups created prior to running the simulation, this
column lists the group name from the tree view

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Column Name Typ Opti Description

e onal

Template text x For groups created at simulation runtime, this column

lists the name of the template (group type) used to
create the group

14.10. Attractors History

The attractor history file (filename_attractors.csv, where filename is the name of your saved PTH
file) provides time history data for each attractor in the model. Each row of the file contains a
single time step with the following data for each attractor in the columns:

Time
The output time for this data row. The frequency of output is controlled by the CSV Output
Freq. box in the Simulation Parameters dialog.

Attractor Usage
The number of occupants using Attractor at the time step.

14.11. 3D Results
Included with Pathfinder is the Pathfinder Results Viewer for visualizing 3D results. This software
can be used to visualize results from both Pathfinder and the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) from
the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST).

By default, the Pathfinder Results Viewer starts automatically when a Pathfinder simulation has
finished. To start the results viewer manually either click View 3D Results in main toolbar or
in the Results menu click View 3D Results.

For more information on using the Pathfinder Results Viewer, refer to the (Pathfinder Results User
Manual, n.d.).

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Chapter 15. Troubleshooting

Errors, warnings, mesh connectivity, and other issues can prevent the simulation from running or
cause occupants to get stuck. Errors and warnings often provide a tip on fixing the issue. The
following sections offer solutions to common problems you might face while using Pathfinder.

15.1. Occupants cannot reach their goals, or they are

getting stuck
Check the connectivity of the mesh. Check how various components are connected in the model to
debug simulation errors or to ensure model validity.

To determine why a specific occupant cannot reach its next goal:

1. Right-click the room containing the occupant, and click Select Connected Components from
the right-click menu.

2. From the drop-down box in the Select Connected Components dialog, we choose Entire
graph and click OK. (This traces model connectivity to help determine where a door or other
connection is missing.)

Pathfinder will highlight the entire graph of components touching the initial selection. We can
then inspect the selected components to find out where they are disconnected from the occupant’s
goal.

For finer inspection in a highly connected model, select only immediately adjacent components in
the Select Connected Components dialog.

Sometimes occupants become "stuck" even on a properly connected mesh, 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.

2. Slightly increase the occupants' Interpersonal Distance in their profile.

3. Slightly reduce the occupants' Reduction Factor in their profile.

4. 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.

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15.2. Warnings and errors in the navigation tree

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, . 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:

• Warning if stairs are not connected to rooms at both ends.

• Warning if stairs or doors overlap along an edge.

• 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.

15.3. Find objects related to a specific object

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.

15.4. System memory issues

Some models may require significant system memory to run, either because the navigational
model is complex with many doors/connections, etc, or simply because there are tens of
thousands of occupants. By default, Pathfinder will use up to half of system memory to run the

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user interface and the simulation. In some cases, this is not enough, which may result in
Pathfinder crashing or the operating system becoming unresponsive while the simulation is
running. In this case, it may be possible to allow Pathfinder to use more system memory. There
are two ways to do this.

The first way is to run Pathfinder from the command line and specify an additional flag that
indicates more memory should be allowed for Pathfinder. To do so:

1. In Windows, click the Start Menu, and then type cmd into the search bar. Enter on the
keyboard to start the command prompt.

2. In the command prompt, type cd "C:\Program Files\Pathfinder 2020" and press Enter. If you
installed Pathfinder to a different location, enter that path instead.

3. In the command prompt, type pathfinder -J-DXmx16000m, where 16000 is the amount of system
memory to allow in megabytes. In most cases this amount should not exceed 95% of actual
system memory.

If you specify an amount that is too high, there may not be enough resources for
NOTE
the graphical features of Pathfinder, which may lead to crashes or other issues.

For a more permanent way to specify a higher memory limit you can perform the following:

1. If Pathfinder is not already pinned to the taskbar, in Windows click the Start Menu and type
Pathfinder into the search bar. Then right-click the correct Pathfinder executable and select
Pin to taskbar.

2. In the Windows task bar, find the pinned Pathfinder application and right-click it.

3. In the sub-menu that appears, right-click the Pathfinder executable and select Properties.

4. At the end of the Target field, type a space on the keyboard and then -J-DXmx16000m. The
shortcut dialog will look similar to Figure 146.

5. Press OK and then start Pathfinder using the pinned shortcut.

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Figure 146. Example Shortcut Dialog

15.5. Issues with custom avatars

If you experience issues displaying a custom occupant or vehicle avatar, see Section 4.5.5 for help
troubleshooting.

15.6. Video display problems and crashes on startup

Pathfinder utilizes many advanced graphics card features in order to provide accelerated and
enhanced display of models.

Sometimes these graphics features combined with certain display drivers can cause display issues
or crashes on startup. The first step in these cases is to ensure you have the latest operating
system updates and graphics drivers installed. If you do and you still have display problems or
crashing on startup, you can start Pathfinder in Safe Mode, which disables several graphics

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features. To start in Safe Mode:

1. Open a command-prompt by opening the start menu and typing cmd. Then press Enter.

2. In the command-prompt, navigate to the Pathfinder install folder by typing cd "C:\Program

Files\Pathfinder 2021".

3. Start Pathfinder in Safe Mode by typing pathfinder -DSafeMode.

4. If Pathfinder starts up successfully, you can see which display properties were changed. Under
the File menu, click Preferences, and then click on the Rendering tab.

5. You can enable each item one at a time to see which ones caused the issue.

Disabled safe-mode properties will remain disabled the next time you run
NOTE Pathfinder, even if not in Safe Mode. If you’ve re-enabled some of those options,
running in Safe Mode again will disable the options again.

If you encounter display problems or crashes, please let us know the make/model of your video
card and what video driver you are using, even if Safe Mode fixes your issues. That will help us
improve the software in future updates.

15.7. Additional support resources

Pathfinder has a support forum located at https://forum.thunderheadeng.com/index.php.

If you are unable to resolve your issues from the suggestions in the table, please contact
Thunderhead Engineering Email Support.

Mail should be sent to:

Thunderhead Engineering
403 Poyntz Ave. Suite B
Manhattan, KS 66502-6081
USA

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Appendix A: Pre-defined Speed Profiles

Pre-defined speed profiles are included in Pathfinder as a convenient starting point Table 13. All
Pathfinder models are initialized with a "Default" profile. Additional bundles of profiles are
included in the lib/profiles subdirectory of the Pathfinder install location.

Table 13. Summary of the profiles included with Pathfinder.

Profile Source Speed Speed-Density Speed Factor Stairs

Relation

Default Constant (1.19 m/s) SFPE (built-in) SFPE (built-in)

imo_speed_profiles.pli Uniform Distribution From Table Constant

b

fruin_speed_profiles.pl Normal Distribution SFPE (built-in) From Table

ib

The "Default" profile present in new Pathfinder models is based on data in the SFPE’s Engineering
Guide to Human Behavior in Fire (SFPE 2019). This profile uses a constant speed of 1.19 m/s and
relies on Pathfinder’s defaults for speed-density relation and slope-based speed factor on stairs.

A.1. Profiles from the IMO’s Revised Guidelines for

Passenger Ships
The profile bundle imo_speed_profiles.plib is based on data from the IMO’s guidelines (IMO 2007).

This source gives ranges of walking speeds on flat terrain for each of 12 different population
groups. This is implemented directly in the Pathfinder profiles as per-profile uniform
distributions. The bundle of profiles in Pathfinder includes only the ten population groups that do
not correspond to crew members.

A table is given for speed-density relation on flat terrain in terms of "initial specific flow" and a
reference "initial speed". These two values were used to create a speed-density factor table shared
by all profiles in this set.

This speed-density relation differs from the built-in speed-density relation

NOTE primarily in very dense situations, clamping the max density based slowdown at
0.1 m/s rather than 0.15 m/s.

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Figure 147. Graph of Walking Speeds as a Function of Density

The revised guidelines also define ranges of walking speeds up and down stairs for all population
groups. Since Pathfinder requires a speed factor for stairs rather than a range, these values were
approximated by calculating a constant scaling factor based on the average of the flat terrain
range and the average of the range of speed on stairs.

A.2. Profiles from Fruin’s Pedestrian Planning and

Design
The profile bundle fruin_speed_profiles.plib is based on data from John Fruin’s Pedestrian
Planning and Design (Fruin and Strakosch 1987).

This source describes six population groups based on age and gender, and only gives a single
normal distribution of walking speeds that is used for all population groups. This is implemented
in Pathfinder by re-using the same normal distribution for the six population groups and an
"Average All" aggregate profile.

The built-in SFPE-based speed-density relation is used for all profiles in this set. The built-in SFPE-
based speed-density relation differs from the original data primarily in the locations where the
min and max walking speeds are clamped. The original data was in terms of an absolute

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measurement of walking speed across multiple people rather than a value that could be
normalized to a specific speed (1.2 m/s) and it went to zero at high densities which is undesirable
for simulation because it could cause issues with occupants becoming permanently stuck. The
following chart compares the original data to the relation used for this profile in Pathfinder.

Figure 148. Graph of Walking Speeds as a Function of Density from Fruin

Pedestrian Planning and Design (Fruin and Strakosch 1987) gives stairway speeds for two slopes,
identified as an "indoor" 32 degree stair (7" / 11.25") and an "outdoor" 27 degree stair (6" / 12").
Speeds are given for the up direction and the down direction and they are individualized for the
six population groups and the aggregate group. These speeds were converted to tables of speed
modifier fractions. For each slope and direction, the speed on stairs was converted to a fraction of
max speed by dividing by the average of the flat walking speed (1.2 m/s) used by all population
groups. This made it possible to create tables of speed modifiers unique to each population group
and travel direction that contained two data points. For stairs with slopes more or less than the
given 32 and 27 degree stairs, the factor is constant (i.e. not extrapolated).

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Appendix B: BEA File Format

When Pathfinder imports a custom avatar, a BEA file is also created, located in the import
directory of the avatar file. The BEA file tells Pathfinder which animations to use for the avatar
and gives additional information about the avatar, such as scaling, rotation, and offset
information, and natural speeds for the movement animations.

B.1. MESH Section

The MESH section of the BEA file links to the avatar file and describes any scaling and other
transformation properties as follows:

MESH { "avatarfile" scale additional_transforms }

avatarfile
the filename of the avatar relative to this BEA file.

scale
A scaling factor to apply to the avatar if the avatar is the incorrect size. For instance, if the
avatar appears to be about 50% of its real size when using a scaling factor of 1.0, try a scaling
factor of 2.0 to make it twice as big.

additional_transforms
[optional] May be any number of the following transforms:

rotate rx ry rz rangle
Rotates the avatar about the axis, (rx, ry, rz), an angle of rangle degrees, using the right-
hand rule.

translate tx ty tz
Moves the avatar a distance of (tx, ty, tz) units.

The scale factor is always the first transform applied to the avatar. All other transforms are
applied in reverse order, meaning that the last listed transform is the first non-scale transform
applied to the avatar.

Example:

MESH {"avatar.fbx" 2.0 translate 0 0 .1 rotate 0 0 1 90 rotate 1 0 0 180}

will first scale the avatar by 200%, then rotate it about the X axis by 180°, then rotate about the Z

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axis by 90°, and finally move it up along the Z axis by .1 m.

B.2. ANIMATIONS Section

The ANIMATIONS section is only used for occupant avatars. There are two categories of animations:
IDLE and MOVE. Each category can have several animations types. Each animation type can list any
number of animation files. Each animation file is listed with several parameters, depending on
the category of the animation.

The animation types are as follows:

Table 14. Animation Types

Animation Type CATE Description

GORY

IDLESTAND IDLE Used when an occupant is standing and waiting.

IDLEWHEELCHAIR IDLE Used when an occupant is in a wheelchair and is waiting or

being assisted.

IDLEINJURED IDLE Unused.

IDLEBEDFLAT IDLE Used when an occupant in on a bed.

IDLESEVERLYINJURED IDLE Unused.

MOVEFORWARD MOVE Used when an occupant is walking forward.

MOVEBACKWARD MOVE Used when an occupant is walking backward. If this animation

type isn’t included in the BEA file, the MOVEFORWARD
animations are used and played backward.

MOVEFORWARDDOW MOVE Used when an occupant is walking forward down stairs.

NSTAIRS

MOVEBACKWARDDO MOVE Used when an occupant is walking backward down stairs. If this
WNSTAIRS animation type isn’t included in the BEA file, the
MOVEFORWARDUPSTAIRS animations are used and played
backward.

MOVEFORWARDUPST MOVE Used when an occupant is walking forward up stairs.

AIRS

MOVEBACKWARDUPS MOVE Used when an occupant is walking backward up stairs. If this

TAIRS animation type isn’t included in the BEA file, the
MOVEFORWARDDOWNSTAIRS animations are used and played
backward.

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Animation Type CATE Description

GORY

MOVEFORWARDWHEE MOVE Used when an occupant is moving forward in a wheelchair

LCHAIR without assistance.

MOVEBACKWARDWH MOVE Used when an occupant is moving backward in a wheelchair

EELCHAIR without assistance. If this animation type isn’t included in the
BEA file, the MOVEFORWARDWHEELCHAIR animations are
used and played backward.

B.2.1. IDLE Animations

IDLE animations are used when an occupant is in an idle state. When several IDLE animations are
listed for an animation type, one is chosen at random each time the occupant enters an idle state.
IDLE animations are listed with the following format:

animationtype { listofidleanims }

where listofidleanims is a list of animations in this format:

"animfile" transforms

animfile
the name of the animation file, relative to the current BEA file.

transforms
a list of transforms to be applied to the listed animation in reverse order. It includes
additional_transforms as specified in Section B.1 with one additional transform:

scale s
Scales the animation by a factor of s. Unlike the scale parameter in the Section B.1, this scale
transform is applied in order with the other listed transforms.

B.2.2. MOVE Animations

MOVE animations are listed with the following format:

animationtype { listofmoveanims }

where listofmoveanims is a list of animations in this format:

"animfile" frameoffset naturalspeed maxspeed retargettype transforms

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animfile
the name of the animation file, relative to the current BEA file.

frameoffset
the frame offset that defines the start of the animation clip. This should specify a time in the
animation when the character is closest to standing up straight. For walking/running
animations, the same foot must be stepping forward after each frameoffset for ALL moving
animations.

naturalspeed
the natural movement speed in m/s of the animation. When the occupant is moving this at this
speed, the animation will be played back at 1x speed. If the occupant is moving at twice this
speed, the animation will be played back at 2x speed, etc.

maxspeed
The maximum occupant speed in m/s at which this animation should be used. If the occupant is
moving faster than this speed, the next animation of this type is used unless this is the last of
its type.

retargettype
[optional] If specified, specifies that this animation was created using a different avatar than
the one listed in the MESH section. This can take on the following values:

retarget
Indicates that the animation was created using a different avatar that has the same
joint/skeletal structure as the MESH avatar.

retarget_to_self
Indicates that the animation was created using a different avatar with a different
joint/skeletal structure than the MESH avatar. The animation file itself contains the avatar for
which the animation was made - this only works if the anim file is an FBX file and contains
the avatar as well as the animation.

retarget_to "retargetavatarfile"
Indicates that the animation was created using a different avatar with a different
joint/skeletal structure than the MESH avatar. retargetavatarfile specifies the file relative to
the BEA file that contains the avatar for which the animation was made.

transforms
Same as for the IDLE animations.

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Example:

MOVEFORWARD {
"anims/walk1.md5anim" 13 .725 1.1 retarget_to "anims/base_mesh.md5mesh"
"anims/walk3.md5anim" 5 1.800 1.7 retarget_to "anims/base_mesh.md5mesh"
"anims/maleRun.md5anim" 4 3.170 1000 retarget_to "anims/base_mesh.md5mesh"
}

This exampe indicates that there are three animations for moving forward. The first specifies that
the 13th frame of walk1.md5anim is when the occupant is about to step forward. The animation will
playback at 1x speed when the occupant is moving .725 m/s. walk1.md5anim should only be used if
the occupant is walking less than 1.1 m/s. In addition, walk1.md5anim was created for the avatar
specified in base_mesh.md5mesh rather than the avatar specified in the MESH section. walk3.md5anim
should be used when the occupant is walking between 1.1 m/s and 1.7 m/s. maleRun.md5anim is
used if the occupant is walking faster than 1.7 m/s.

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