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Many Updates for Occupant Sources in Upcoming Release

Pathfinder occupant sources are slated to receive no fewer than six new features in the upcoming 2022.3 update. These range from improving scheduled injections to adding control of initial orientation. The figures below further show and describe each update.

Occupant Source Initial Velocity
Occupants can now have a defined initial velocity to represent their speed upon entering the model.
Occupant Source Automatic Orientation
Pathfinder will now by default apply context-aware algorithms to determine and apply an obvious orientation, if applicable.
Occupant Source Initial Orientation
Occupant sources can now include defined orientation distributions.
Occupant Source Individual Injection
Individual occupants can now have specified injection times via the source. This is an alternative to using a flow rate distribution.
Occupant Source Randomized Timing
Occupant source flow rates can now have randomized timing instead of a uniform distribution.
Occupant Source Randomization
Users can now generate a new random distribution of profiles, behaviors, and positions from an occupant source.

What are Occupant Sources?

Occupant sources provide a way to generate occupants rather than predefine them while building the model. In this way, new occupants can be introduced to the model after the initial simulation time. Doors, rooms, or other rectangular areas can all be defined as occupant sources. Occupant flow rates, profiles, and behaviors can all be customized for individual occupant sources.

When are Occupant Sources used?

Sometimes the geometry of a model does not include all areas of the structure, whether interior or exterior. Occupants may enter the modeled area from these external spaces and therefore do not have a place to be predefined. Also, there are instances where ingress needs to be modeled, whether as part of pre-movement before evacuation or as the entire study. Other unique uses might include introducing specific persons during evacuation, such as emergency personnel.

Where can I find more information about Pathfinder Occupant Sources?

For information on how to use Occupant Sources, reference the Pathfinder User Manual. Additionally, there is another 2022.3 update for occupant sources related to Monte Carlo simulations.

When can I access this new feature?

Each of these updates to occupant sources will be provided as features of Pathfinder 2022.3 which releases on December 7. For more feature previews, subscribe to our newsletter.