Staging + Edit Tracking Reporting

[Stefano Girardo]

Hello Ventsim!

Not sure if there are any features within Ventsim that could currently perform the desired function, but I am posting to ask and perhaps put in a ticket for the next version upgrade!

In short our technical group currently manually tracks changes across each and every stage of our model. With changes in file storage locations, change of staff, change of models, addition/removal of Stages etc etc etc it can become difficult to send or receive a model with the certainty of what changes, stage over stage, exist.

I ask/propose if there exists such a revision/edit tracker so that a user can quickly identify or report modifications applied to a stage relative to its predecessor or general unique airways.

For example Ventsim already defines "unique" airways and allows users to zero out any shared airways via the Merge stage function. If there was a way to report or visual identify unique airways relative to another stage it would make things easier to audit models that have changed hands and confirm works to be completed. Main changes would be any item in the EDIT window (size, shape, K factor, resistance, orifice size, louver opening, fan speed, pitch, heat input etc etc etc)

Ultimately there is always exporting the model via a spreadsheet, flipping through stages and checking airways manually, or using stage graphs but I wonder if there is an easier way. A Stage Graph type function of reporting that can be done across multiple airways/stages without the need for airways to be selected and be defined from a specific stage reference.

If anyone has any tips let me know!  

[Martin Griffith]

Hi Stefano, 

Thanks for the message, feedback and suggestions. There are definitely things here that you can't do in Ventsim and that we would like you to be able to do in the future. I'll go through those, but I'll first just direct you to a few tools that do exist that may help, (and that you may already be aware of). 

1 - You have the tools under the Stage menu to select or highlight airways that are unique to the stage. This doesn't do a comparison between stages, but it may show up things that have changed that you  weren't expecting to change. 

2- Similarly, we added the Descriptors | Stage property. (We recently improved this property, so it might behave a little different in your current version. But you should see it in an update soon), which will colour the model by stage settings, and give a readout of what stage each airway belongs. Again, unexpected changes in colour may indicate something has changed  

 

3 - File | Compare, this will let you compare 2 different models. Again, not exactly what you want. If you are keen to use this tool on 2 stages in the same model, you could create 2 new models for each stage using the File | Export | Current Stage as New Model tool, open one of the 2 model, then run the File | Compare with the other. 

There is more we could do here. We do have long term plans to introduce database features to Ventsim, which will enable you to track changes for example. We will also think of ways to make a stage compare tool. 

 

[Craig Christensen]

Hi Stefano,

One reasonably straightforward feature we could add is a last edited timestamp on each airway which would save a last edit time in UTC time format. With that we could add a data property so that you could for example colour and show airways by minutes since they were edited perhaps. That would let you use the colour sliders to narrow down to just recent edits and also would allow for a new column to filter on in the spreadsheet tool/exports. 

One thing this wouldn't capture though is showing you when any airways are deleted but other comparison tools could handle that. 

Would that be useful for what you are doing?

[Stefano Girardo]

Thanks for the responses Martin and Craig!

Some comments though.

1. The Select Unique airways is useful but is a bit tricky depending on how a user preforms staging tasks. For example our department brings in the LOMP fully as a Stage 1 and blocks off areas yet to be developed. We found this easier to do when schedules ultimately change instead of importing or deleting airways for each Stage as modifications made (Usually 10+ Stages per mine model).

2. Descriptors by Stage is also impacted by something as described above. A "by-pass" to both of these features as well is the utilization of a fixed flow across multiple stages. For example if a level return or fresh air source is set to a fixed flow of 50kcfm, across all stages it will be the same airway despite potentially changing in pressure or orifice size. Personally we do not usually convert these into ventilation controls until the very end of our process so save time on rework/rebalancing. However after such I could imagen they would report as unique airways.

3. The File compare feature is useful but is limited as well to the above. Also the addition of auxiliary ducting for development headings I believe is flagged. Meaning there could be hundreds of identified airways between stages that are identified. From a long range design perspective, seeing auxiliary runs takes second priority to larger circuit modifications. Perhaps if there was a filter out feature to this feature built into Ventsim this function would be exactly what I would be looking for. I could always export and filter myself but I have yet to try this.

4. Craig I think you might be onto something, but I can't fully confirm this is the solution. Just speaking out loud if each stage/airway could have an edit time stamp with the stage creation date being Time 00:00:00 than a user could look at 1. What airways were modified 2. when they were modified. I think this with a ducting filter would allow easy identification of the airways changed, however I think should be complemented by an airway history log (i.e last 100 edits to airway starting from stage creation). This would allow the user to better understand what edits were made. I think this may get complicated with shared airways and cascading modifications and might make file sizes larger BUT I am but a humble Ventsim user and not a programmer, if its possible to do GREAT!     

I think the vast majority of limitations I have described are more on how my organization personally utilizes the software than the software itself, but if any thing could be done for added features on the next release it would be greatly beneficial to hopefully more users than just me hahaha! Thanks again for the feed back I will try to play around with the features above some more to see if I can extract the information I am looking for!

[Craig Christensen]

Hi Stefano,

You can download version 6.0.2.2 now from the website. This new version has the "last edited on" timestamp on each airway which you can find in the Descriptors category.  Keep in mind this will only track after starting to use this version onwards and if someone with an older version works on the file it will be lost, as previous versions won't save anything for this field. 

It follows the same rules as undo/redo system so just keep in mind it won't pick up the airway as being changed if you changed a value of a preset value it was using, only direct edits to the airway.

You can download it from here: Patches | Ventsim®

[Stefano Girardo]

Thanks Craig! This feature has already proved itself to be useful!