Edificio Help

For the facility model, VISAC utilizes the standard geometry package BRL-CAD. This package was chosen for its compatibility with many other codes [e.g., EVA-3D, MEVA, PATRAN, ADINA, EPIC-2, PSARC, and NASTRAN (U.S. Army, 1991)]. A full description of the many uses of BRL-CAD can be found on ARL's BRL-CAD web site http://ftp.arl.army.mil/brlcad/. However, unlike many CAD packages, BRL-CAD uses solid geometry; therefore, it is almost impossible to convert models from typical geometry packages that use surface orientation to BRL-CAD. All BRL-CAD model generation typically must be performed using the primitive graphical user interface MGED provided with the BRL-CAD package (U.S. Army, 1991). MGED is a GUI intended to provide a means of viewing the model and adding or modifying geometric bodies within it; nonetheless, its editing capabilities are less than desirable.

Because of the editing limitations found within MGED, a high-level geometry editing package has been developed within VISAC. The purpose of this editor is to provide a means of constructing a nuclear facility from basic building blocks within a few minutes instead of the days or weeks that it would normally take by using MGED.

This timesaving can be accomplished by assuming that most nuclear facilities are constructed of the same basic building types. For the construction of a simple Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), several buildings would be chosen from a menu. Typically, the buildings that would be chosen are -- a containment building (that houses the reactor), an auxiliary building (that houses the support equipment), a turbine building (that houses the power production equipment), a diesel generator building (to provide backup power, sometimes located within the turbine building), a transformer building (can also be located within the turbine building), and an intake structure (to provide cooling water for the turbines). An example of this selection process is provided in Figure 1. Not shown in the figure is the ability to rotate the entire building and to show the internal structures (x-ray view). These features will be revealed in Figure 2.

It is interesting to note that all of the containment buildings shown look similar; however, each represents a significantly different design (e.g., one represents a small ice condenser unit while another represents a large dry containment). Also, separate containment buildings are provided for the three major U.S. vendors: Westinghouse, Babcock & Wilcox, and Combustion Engineering.

Once a facility is constructed, several modifications can be performed to make the facility match the specific site of interest. These adaptations include moving, adding, and rotating components within the buildings. Components can also be exchanged amongst the various buildings. Figure 2 shows a containment and auxiliary building. The components on the third floor of the auxiliary building are shown in red. As can be seen, the auxiliary building has been rotated 90 degrees from what is visible in Figure 1. Each red component is intended to represent a piece of equipment that will be used in the fault trees. The red circles at the top of the auxiliary building, which correspond to emergency water storage tanks, are required if the intake structure becomes unavailable.

Figure 3 illustrates movement of these tanks along with several pumps (the boxes shifted from the bottom of the building to the top). The figure also demonstrates the addition of several components that represent control consoles, indicated by the black arrow. Lastly, Figure 3 illustrates the addition of a grid that can be used to aid the user in the proper placement of buildings.

Contact Information

Contact:	Robert H. Morris	PO Box 2008, MS 6085
	Program Manager	Oak Ridge, TN 37830
	Modeling and Simulation Group	tel: (865) 576-5878
	Computational Sciences and Engineering Division	fax: (865) 576-0003
	Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate	email: visac@ornl.gov
	Oak Ridge National Laboratory	web: visac.ornl.gov

The Edificio editor is designed for use with BRL-CAD models of buildings and facilities. It has several modes for differing tasks, such as editing the geometry or components of buildings.

You must begin any editing work on an existing facility, but from there you may delete and add buildings from other facilities in any combination desired. Buildings can be moved in any direction, including changing their elevations. While moves in the cardinal directions are performed by selecting a building and dragging it with the mouse, the elevation is changed in the property table.

Buildings by default are shown from an overhead view. However it is possible to "look into" the building on a floor by floor basis by using the floor level slider. It is also possible to zoom in or out for a better view of a floor or a facility. If you don't see the particular part of the facility you wish to in the current view, you can quickly scroll over to it using the navigator panel.

Many building models have critical components inside which can be moved and manipulated in various ways in edit mode. These show up in red inside the building. Additional information about the components can be found in the critical component window.

You can also create several simple buildings from scratch to add to your facilities. These buildings have various options for customization as well such as size and number of floors. The information about these tools can be found in the section on creating buildings from scratch.

After launching Edificio, the program will be running in one of several modes. The modes are chosen based on the way the program is launched from VISAC. The following modes are available:

Edit Mode: This is the most powerful mode in Edificio, allowing you to customize many aspects of a model, bring in new buildings, and copies of the same building. The user can also copy or delete components and paste them on different floors.

View Mode: This is primarily useful to view a facility design, or floor layouts. Critical components can also be seen in this mode. No changes are allowed by the user in this mode.

Blast Mode: This mode is similar to view mode in that no changes are allowed by the user. However this mode also allows one to place a blast inside or outside of a building. The user can specify the size of the blast and the elevation. This data can be returned to VISAC for more detailed results.

Cross-Hair Mode: Similar to blast mode except that the size of the blast is not determined in Edificio. Again the results will be returned to VISAC for more detailed information.

Edificio is always launched with a facility present. If you desire to import new buildings you must be in edit mode, you can do this in two ways. The first will allow you to bring in buildings from the same facility. This is accomplished by selecting a type of building from the drop down menu 'type of building' in the preview panel on the left side of the window as shown below:

If you wish to bring in buildings from a different facility than the current one in the preview panel, simply access the facility type menu from the menu bar. Here you will see a list of possible facilities to choose from. Those above the separator are library facilities, and those below are user-created facilities. Choosing one of these options will reset the preview panel to display the different types of buildings present in that facility.

To select a building, simply left click on it. You cannot be in floor view to select a building. If you are in floor view, return the floor view to zero by moving the floor view slider or by closing the critical component window. You will know the building has been selected because it will be outlined with dashed lines.

It is possible to select multiple buildings at the same time as well. This is useful for dragging several buildings together to a new location, without losing their original configuration. To do this, simply left click near the buildings you want to select and drag the mouse. A box will appear and any buildings which are touching this box when you release the mouse button will be selected. All of the buildings selected will now be surrounded by a box with dashed lines. Left clicking on any of these buildings will select the entire group now, and you simply drag the buildings together to the new location and release the mouse button.

Once a single building is selected, information about that building will appear in the property table . Selecting multiple buildings will not cause this information to appear.

To deselect a building or buildings, simply left-click on an empty area in the canvas.

Moving buildings is quite simple in Edificio. Simply left-click on the desired building and drag it where you wish. You will know the building is selected when its out-line is marked with black dashed lines. Moving the building to the edges of the screen will increase the size of your facility area and you may not be able to see other buildings as they move off the screen. If you wish to return to the other buildings, try scrolling or using the zoom or center buttons on the tool bar.

You cannot move buildings while looking at the floor view . If you are in floor view, return the floor view to zero by moving the floor view slider or by closing the critical component window

There are three ways to delete buildings. To delete a single building from a facility, simply right click on that building. This will not remove the building from the facility until you save the project. You can also select the building with a left click and choose the delete option from the menu bar to achieve the same result.

The other way to delete buildings is through the clear button. This will delete all buildings from the project instead of just one.

The various options and buttons on the menu toolbar are covered in this section. You may click on the buttons above to go to the section covering their functions, or alternately the different topics are listed below in alphabetical order:

The edit menu is full of useful tools. The first group of options revolve around manipulating critical components. See the help section on working with critical components for more information.

The rotate button (pictured above) can also be used for quick 45 degree rotations in the clockwise direction of whatever building is currently selected.

Edificio's grid is the gray graph-paper-like set of lines which appear under the buildings to aid the user in determining positions on the canvas. The program starts by default with the grid showing. The grid makes it easier to map the ruler values to a given point on the canvas. However, you can toggle this grid on and off as it suits you through this menu option.

While this tool will not resize and zoom so all buildings are visible, it will take the view to the exact center point of the facility which is often a useful view. This tool is also available through the center button (shown at left).

This option allows you to delete a building you have selected (see deleting buildings for more information).

This input box allows you to change the ground level for the entire facility. You may only do this when you are not in floor view. By changing this value, you will change the elevation values of all the buildings and components in the entire facility. If you wish to move a building or component relative to the ground, you must edit the sinkage value in the property table to change a building, or edit the elevation of a component in the component window to move components.

In order to see "inside" a building, you will need to use the floor level slider located on the left of the screen below the preview panel . Floors are hard coded into the building files. By default, all buildings show floor 'zero' (which is the overhead view of the building and not an actual floor) until you move the slider to another number. Choosing an actual floor will also update the property table to display the elevation for that floor. If there are any critical components in that building, choosing to view any floor will cause the critical components window to appear. Likewise, resetting the floor level to zero will hide this window. While you are viewing the floors of a building, you will not be able to select other buildings or delete them. If you wish to do this, you must first set the floor view of this building to zero.

The property table is where you will find useful information about basic characteristics of a building such as its name, type, current x/y position, the amount by which the building is sunk into the ground (sinkage), the elevation of the current floor view (if a floor is in view), and also the length and width of the building. Several of these fields are editable by the user.

The x and y locations can be manually changed by clicking on their values and entering in new numbers. The x/y location refers to the upper left hand corner of the building, as if the building were set on an imaginary square slab. This point may not actually be inside the building itself.

The sinkage can also be set by the user by clicking on its value and entering a new one. This will not affect the view on screen, but will affect the geometry of the exported model.

Elevation can also be changed if the building is currently in the over head view (floor zero).

When you are finished with the zoom tool, simply click on the zoom button (which now displays an arrow pointer) and you will return to regular clicking.

While the zoom tool is enabled, any clicks outside the facility canvas area will still function as normal (i.e. you can save buildings, use the floor level slider, etc.), but clicking in the canvas will enact a zoom (unless you are at the max zoom level either in or out). A left-click will zoom in for greater detail, and a right-click will zoom out for less detail. Also, if there is room on the canvas, the zoom will attempt to center on the point where you clicked.

In this section you will find details about working with a building's critical components (the red objects seen inside a building in the floor view)

This window is where you will find all of the basic information about the various critical components you are looking at. In order to access this window you must first select a building (by left-clicking on it) and then select a floor view other than zero. Note that some buildings may not have any critical components, in which case this window will not appear. Once you have this window in view you can access the various tools described below to manipulate the components of that building. Closing this window will also set the floor view of that building back to zero (overhead view).

The information for components is divided into three sections. The left section has the current floor number you are viewing and below that, an alphabetical list of all the components on that floor. You can click on the listing for any component and more detailed information will appear on the right side of the window. Clicking on a component in the building will do this as well.

The middle section lists detailed information about the component selected in the left section. You may edit the name of the component if you like as well as the elevation of the component. You may also edit the minimum overpressure (listed as Min Pressure) and maximum overpressure (listed as Max Pressure).

The section on the right shows you both the min an max elevation for all the components on this floor as well as the range of elevations currently occupied by the component you have selected in the left section of this dialog window.

To select a single component, simply left click on it in the floor view or in the component window. Selecting a components turns it white.

You may select multiple critical components at the same time as well. Simply left click near the components you wish to select and drag a box around the components. When you release the mouse, all components you have selected will now be white. You may now move them together as a group.

After selecting the component(s) you wish to move, simply drag them to the area you wish to place them and release the mouse button. If you attempt to move the component(s) outside of the building, you will not be allowed to do so.

If you wish to move the component(s) to another floor or building, you will need to cut the component(s) first and then select a new building and/or change the floor view. Then you may paste the component(s) into the new location.

This window allows you to create one of three types of components. These components are very simple BRL-CAD solids. Choosing the Rectangle tab will create an arb8 solid. The cylinder will create a trc solid. And the sphere will create an ellg solid. The user must manually enter details about the geometry in the text fields such as height, width, radius, etc. When the correct size and solid have been chosen, clicking the 'ok' button will create the object on the canvas. You can then drag the new object to the building you are working in. After you have dragged the component in the desired location, left click to place it there.

Be careful to input a valid height for the component. If it is too tall, the component will not fit on that floor and you will have to change the height and try again. By default, all components are placed on the floor. Also, if you drag the component in such a way that the component will not fit on the floor where you wish to place it, the editor will not allow this.

This section explains how you can create your own buildings from scratch to add to your facility. The following links tell you more about the functionality of this tool.

Overview of Building Creator

Types of Buildings

Building Data

Working with Floors

Or select items from the image below to find out their function.

Overview of Building Creator

While this tool is called the Building Creator, not all of the structures you can create with it are in fact buildings, but for simplicity's sake we will refer to all of these structures as buildings from here on out.. The Building Creator is designed to allow you to add a number of simple buildings to a facility. You may customize certain aspects of each building depending on what it is. The types of buildings you can create are described below as well as the various aspects you may customize.

The window for the Building Creator is divided into five sections.

1. To choose the type of building you would like to create, select from the list in the upper left section of the window labeled 'Buildings Available'.

2. Once you have selected a building, you will see a sample of the building in the upper right section of the window labeled 'Sample Building' (the building will appear in blue with a white background). This is simply a drawing and does not change if you change the size or other aspects of the building.

3. The middle section of the window has several fields depending on the type of building selected. You can input information into any of these fields to change the information which defines the buildings shape, description, floors, etc.

4. The bottom left section is a 3D representation of the building which changes as you change the physical attributes of the building (length, width, height, and strength). The building is drawn in blue on a black background.

5. The bottom right section is only useful with those buildings that can contain floors such as the rectangular or cylindrical buildings. If one of these is selected, all floors will be displayed at their appropriate elevations and floor thicknesses. Double-clicking on these floors brings up the floor dialog

Sample Building

The images displayed in the upper right section of the dialog are static images that give you a general idea of what a typical building of that type would look like.

Preview of Building

The bottom left section of the window displays a preview of what the building will look like. As you change the data in the fields in the middle section the appearance of this preview will change accordingly.

Types of Buildings

Currently there are eight types of pre-generated buildings you can create and then customize. Consult the table below for the characteristics of each building.

Name	Edit Length	Edit Width	Edit Height	Edit Strength	Has Floors
Rectangular	*	*	*		*
Cylindrical	*	*	*		*
Guard Tower			*
Water Tank			*
Basic Road	*			*
Intersection				*
Road Corner				*
T Intersection				*

The last four entries in this table are all different configurations for roads. If you edit the strength of these, it will increase the thickness of that road. There are three levels of strength: weak, average, and strong. The width of a road is fixed at 20 feet.

If a building has floors, you can edit the appearance of these floors by using the floor level pane.

Building Data

The middle section of the window displays different fields for data entry depending on what type of building you are currently viewing. All buildings need to have a name and a description, however. While most of this information should be self-explanatory, here is a list of the different fields and what data they cover.

Length: corresponds to the measurements in the y plane. The maximum value for this is 1000 feet.

Width: corresponds to the measurements in the x plane. The maximum value for this is 1000 feet.

Height: corresponds to the measurements in the z plane. The maximum value for this is 1000 feet.

Strength: determines the overall thickness of the structure. In the case of roads, weak roads are 0.5 feet thick, average roads are 1.5 feet thick, and strong roads are 3 feet thick.

Add Floor: input numbers here to add floors to your building. These floors appear in the floor level section of the window

Pressing 'DONE' will close the building creation window and place the building in the upper left corner of the the main Edificio window. From there you can drag the building and place it where you wish.

Working with Floors

In the bottom right section of the window is an area where floor data is displayed for rectangular and cylindrical buildings (the other buildings cannot have floors). All buildings are considered to be resting at a ground level of zero, however the elevation of each floor is displayed from the top of the floor, so the bottom-most floor would only display an elevation of zero if it had a zero thickness. The default thickness is two and this is what will be displayed when you first select a building. Each floor has a thickness which can be changed in the floor dialog.. This dialog box is accessed by double-clicking on the floor's hash mark. The default thickness for the floors is 0.08 feet. Each floor's walls share the same default thickness (2 for the bottom floor, 0.08 for all others)

You can add a new floor by double-clicking anywhere on the elevation line, or by entering a valid floor elevation in the middle section of the window where data is recorded and displayed for the overall building.

Floor Dialog

The Floor Dialog allows you to edit the appearance of a particular floor. This box is accessed by double-clicking on the hash mark for a particular floor in the floor elevation bar. If you are working with a rectangular building, you will see a dialog box similar to the one pictured at left. You can edit any of the thicknesses for the four walls. Depending on the value you enter, you may see the lines on the shape to the left increase or decrease in thickness. For large buildings, small values may not cause any change in appearance, however. If you are editing the floor of a cylindrical building, there will only be a single wall whose thickness you can change. The walls you are changing are those that are above the floor level you have selected. Thus if you are changing the thickness of the ceiling, no walls will appear for you to edit as there are none.

The bottom section of this dialog box displays information for the actual floor solid of the particular floor you are editing. Changing the value here will cause the thickness of the horizontal floor display to the left to grow or shrink providing the floor elevation is not so large as to make small changes unnoticeable.

A grid is also provided in the wall diagram for an idea of scale. If you change the size of the building drastically, this may change the scale of the grid as well.

Here are some helpful tips to overcoming problems you may have in using the Edificio editor.

If the building disappears in well view, it is probably because you selected it before going into wall view and the part of the building in the screen does not have any walls. Try deselecting the building by left clicking elsewhere on the canvas. The normal color of the building should return and the building should be visible once again.

If you are left-clicking on a building to select it, but it does not become selected, you may be in floor view in another building. Check the floor slider . If the slider is not set to zero, move it to zero and try selecting the building again. Alternately, if the component window is visible, closing this window will also set the floor to zero so you can select a new building.

Some critical components exist on multiple floors and cannot be moved. Attempts to move these components will give you an error message.

To edit the ground level, you cannot be in floor view. Check the floor slider . If the slider is not set to zero, move it to zero and try editing the ground level again.

Sometimes in wall view a building appears to have no walls, or is missing certain walls. If you are sure that the building should have a wall, but you cannot see that wall, it may be that you are zoomed to far out, or that the wall is too thin to see under the current zoom level. Try zooming in more on the area where the wall should be. Eventually you will probably be able to see the wall.

If you press the center button, but cannot see any buildings, you may be zoomed too far in or the buildings may be in a configuration such as a ring or at opposite corners to where the center view will not show you anything. Try zooming out more to get the buildings to appear again in the viewing area. Also, try looking at the navigator panel if the black square there is covering only white space, you will not be able to see anything. Drag the white box to where there are some buildings to get them to show up again.