Emergency Preparedness

By default, Pathfinder directs pedestrians along the fastest routes to exits, removing them from the model once they evacuate.

Additional features include tools to simulate the spread of threat awareness as well as delayed or probabilistic reactions. Even epidemic and pandemic situations can be modeled with social distancing behaviors and built-in analysis tools like proximity tracing and visual indicators for distancing.

Exposure to fire conditions

The most basic Pathfinder simulation is Egress; due to a fire, every agent takes their fastest route to a set of exits defined in the model. Once each person passes through an exit, they are removed from the simulation and reported as having exited the model.

Pathfinder can couple Pathfinder and PyroSim (FDS) simulations for the purposes of Fractional Effective Dose (FED) calculations. Pathfinder creates data for each agent as they move throughout the simulation.

The companion application, Pathfinder Results, even provides the ability to perform visibility calculations for each person; this uses smoke data to simulate the impact of reduced visibility on an evacuation plan.

Assisted evacuation

Model assisted evacuations with customizable mobility equipment and designated teams of staff.

Mobility equipment has configurable vertices and assistant attachment points to create unique shapes and physical properties. These models include full animation for realistic results.

Spread of threat awareness

Pathfinder supports flexible tools that can interrupt an agent's current objective and replace it with another goal, either temporarily or permanently.

This, combined with Monte Carlo randomization, allows modelling of spreading threat awareness; each individual uniquely responds.

Social distancing

Social distancing behavior can be modeled in Pathfinder within the pedestrian characteristics.

Tools are flexible, allowing users to:

• Set social distance preferences
• Limit social distancing to specific agents
• Eliminate social distancing within defined groups

Pathfinder Results supports analysis work:

• Render social distance disks as half of the social distance radius, so that disk overlap directly indicates occupants are too close
• Proximity tracing analysis for confined spaces can be used to retrofit crowd models during a pandemic