3D, Multi Storey Simulation of underground and aboveground

Hi,

I have a simulation, which in practice takes place both underground and above-ground.

I want a below ground simulation of the coal mining process in a 3D model of the underground tunnels, and then the coal to travel on a conveyor to an above-ground simulation.

This is analagous to simulating two floors of a hospital in the Health Care application, with connection of resources, or a two-storey manufacturing layout.

We assume there is a 3D-model of the underground tunnel network that is imported into Flexsim, and then specialised resources are layed out with execution logic.

The key question is, can I fly into my below-ground model to look around, or can I make the background and above ground model invisible?

Has anyone tried this two-level type of model before, and does anyone have advice about whether this can be achieved, or how best to manage this multi-level type of problem?

Please advise

Thanks

Brett

Originally Posted by brett forbes

The key question is, can I fly into my below-ground model to look around, or can I make the background and above ground model invisible?

Of course you can fly into your below ground model. But if you are using "1st Person" view you can't scroll into a negative height. Just put your ground into a higher position and this problem is solved (nobody can see this difference ).

If you put your objects into a visual tool (p.e. all above ground objects) you can work with the "show contents" option to show / hide your objects.

Greetings

Carsten

You can use another solution which take advantage of how the grafic engine in flexsim works. The key is the position of the "ShowBelow" object. Just push the button in the example

Hi Carsten,

Thanks for your suggestions, they were excellent.

Yes, I will have to displace the underground coal mining process upward so it is above the surface, so I can use zooming.

Ideally, I would want to zoom in, and the top floor (i.e. the above ground) disappears, and I can just then see the 3D model of the bottom floor (i.e. underground mining operation).

Please see the picture attached as an example, where the mining is seen from an iso-metric projection. Ideally, it the Flexsim model would look like this, when I was viewing the bottom floor of the model

Also, its pretty big. I have two hundred 1.5km x 1.5km aerial image tiles from them to load in as background (i.e. all inside Visual Tools). the site is 30km x 15km.

The longwall shown in the picture attached is typically 300 m wide, 2m tall, and about 3,500 m long. There are multiple going on at different, widely-spaced areas up to 20kms away underground. The conveyor distance to above-ground is about 9.5kms.

So its pretty big, and spread-out, as are the above-ground operations. Is there a way I can zoom in and just see the underground operations, and then zoom back out and just see the above-ground operations?

Thanks

Brett

Your little example applications is very clever. It greys out one production line when you press the switch. I'm not quite sure how it works though. Can you explain further please?
Brett

Please have a look into the new example. Now you can see only below or floor with the switch. The code is in the button of the model gui "OnPress". In the tree you can see also how visual tools can separate the two levels.

Of course you could use this code in a user command if you want more flexibility.

Greetings

Carsten

Originally Posted by brett forbes

Your little example applications is very clever. It greys out one production line when you press the switch. I'm not quite sure how it works though. Can you explain further please?
Brett

The code is in the switch, please take a look in "Tools -> Graphical User Interfaces -> YourGui". There you can see the "Switch"-object with the code inside the "OnPress"-node.

Back in the main tree there is a visual tool named "ShowBelow". You get access to this object only via tree. In his properties you can see all his settings.

The idea is to use transparency to gray out one level. The transparency has dependencies with the object position in tree. There is a good chapter in the user manual ("3D Media > Transparency") with an excellent explanation.

Thanks Carsten,

I had opened the "yourGui" inside the Gaphical User Interface, and got as far as seeing the event as a node, but hand't considered clicking on it to reveal the code underneath. Nice.

As you say, you could have the entire upper storey inside a giant visual tool (30 km x 15kms), and use this type of switch or some other device to make everything in the visual tool disappear.

Is this giant container approach the type you would recommend for a two-storey layout over a very large area?

Thanks a lot for the explanation

Brett

Originally Posted by brett forbes

Is this giant container approach the type you would recommend for a two-storey layout over a very large area?

Yes, this should work. BTW your visual tools should be in the origin coordinate in X and Y to set the positions of the objects very easy because the positions are always based on the upper container object. The Z position of the visual tool could be used to set the height of level. The size of the visual tool is independent from his content.

Greetings

Carsten