Simulation panel
Allows you to start/stop the simulation and displays information of its state.
Begin / Resume / Pause button
Clicking this button can do three things:
Begin (start simulation)
This is the clickable state of the button when the simulation hasn't yet ran or changes have been made to the geometry resulting it being reset.
Depending on the geometry size, preparation might take some time:
- The bounding volume hierarchy is constructed
- Total outgassing, etc. is summarized over facets
- Overall, a "simulation model" is created
Then the model is passed to the worker threads (that you create in Global Settings) and the simulation starts/resumes from where it is left.
Resume
The simulation model is already constructed and passed to the worker threads, so simulation resumes instantly from where it was paused.
One exception is when the worker threads have been restarted in Global Settings, in which case resuming takes longer as a GUI->worker sync is required.
Pause
Stops the simulation.
It might also take some time for big models - in these steps partial results from the worker threads are synced an summarized to the GUI.
If the Begin / Pause operations take longer than 0.5s, a load status window is displayed allowing to cancel the action:
Reset simulation
Clears all counters and discards simulation results. The geometry isn't changed.
Scene update
By default, simulation results are fetched from the worker threads (and updated on the screen) every second. For large geometries, this update itself mught take long (sclaing textures, etc.) so it can be disabled.
If disabled, the scene is updated when...
- The Update button is clicked manually
- The simulation is paused
- The Auto-update toggle is turned back on
Hits
Shows the total number of the hits on all facets, and the simulation speed. Note that the hits/sec value is the main indicator of your computer's speed and the simplicity of the geometry. As a thumb rule, a geometry that contains 100 times more facets will be 10 times slower:
speed ~ 1/log(n_facets)
Defining superstructures can speed up simulation significantly.
Des.
A particle is kept in the system until it is either leaked or pumped away. This number shows how many particles were created (desorbed) during the simulation. If the number doesn't increase, that is probably an indicator that the particles are stuck somewhere, thus they can't be pumped away. (Each worker thread creates and traces one molecule at a time, so if you have 8 threads and they are stuck, this number will stay at 8)
Leaks
Indicates that some particles escaped from your system (went in directions in which they didn't collide with any facet). These lost particles represent a geometry error, probably due to too coarse collapsing.
Facet hit list
This list displays the hit, desorbtion and absorption number of all facets, and allows you to find and select facets.
The list is sortable. Click on the column label of Hits, Des. or Abs and the facets will be listed based on that number. Click again on the same column to switch between ascending/descending order. This is a good way to find which facets are hit the most of times, for example. To reorder the list based on facet numbers, simply click on the # column label.
The facets are selectable. Click on any row to select a facet. Once the list has the focus, you can scroll and change selection with the UP and DOWN keys. Holding down SHIFT and using the UP and DOWN allows you to select multiple consecutive facets. If you want to select/deselect multiple facets by the mouse, hold down the CTRL key.