What’s New in Version 3.3¶
Following customers’ requests, these are the main new features of the latest Pathfinder release:
Previous releases:
Shared Scenarios¶
By default, scenarios are private. All users of a project share the same layers (with their filters and rings), but use different scenarios with their own resistance values and scenario settings.
How to share scenarios between users? In previous versions, the scenario catalog and scenario files could already be used to copy values from one scenario to another.
Now Pathfinder provides a more straightforward way to share scenarios among users in the same company. The user who owns a project or a company administrator can set a special flag in the scenario settings to make a scenario shared:
How do other users access a shared scenario?¶
After opening a project, users can access the shared scenarios defined for this project by using the New Scenario button or menu option.
In the new version of the Add Scenario dialog, the user is able to select one or more scenarios from ones shared in this project (if there are any available).
Once the scenarios are added to the project, a special icon will indicate that they are shared scenarios.
When a shared scenario is accessed, its visual settings (layer visibility and colors) and its results are imported, so any user can see the same elements than the owner.
The visibility and colors of these elements can be changed by the user. However, these changes are only preserved in the local computer.
Note
Shared scenarios can be only modified by their owners and the company administrators. Their resistance options and scenario settings will be disabled for other users.
Adding Scenarios¶
As we have seen, a new extended Add Scenario dialog lets users access shared scenarios.
Alternatively, they can still create a new scenario based on the one currently selected, adding an optional scenario description:
The last tab in this dialog is similar, but it creates the new scenario by importing its parameters and settings from a previously exported scenario file.
Viewer User Role¶
A new user role has been added to the list of user profiles available in Pathfinder and assigned by a company administrator.
A viewer user can:
Open company projects for which he/she has permissions.
Access shared scenarios to display their results and data, and change their visibility.
However, a viewer-type user can not create or modify any project or scenario. These options will be disabled, or it will be impossible to save the changes.
When a viewer user opens a project, the Add Scenario dialog will pop up automatically to select available shared scenarios for the project. Otherwise, the viewer user won’t be able to see any project data or results.
Per-project Authorization¶
The default authorization mode is based on user roles, and these are the same for all company projects.
The new per-project authorization lets company administrators decide which users can access specific projects.
Gilytics will configure one of these two authorization modes when your company license is set up. It can be changed later if necessary.
When the per-project authorization mode is activated, the company administrators can select, as part of a:ref:project’s properties <per_project_access>, which users will be able to access it.
Path Editing on Map¶
Sometimes, path editing is easier to perform in 2D than in 3D. For this reason, the Information and Editing pylon tools are now available in the Map view as well as in the 3D view.
As in 3D, when the Move tool is activated, yellow circles will be displayed around the points defining the visible paths. To change the location of a point, just click on it and drag it to a different location.
To finish editing, click with the right mouse button and accept the changes. The path statistics will be recalculated.
Note
Future versions will include the ability to add or remove points in the path.
Project Information Dialog¶
In the 3.3 version, a project description can be added when the project is created.
This description and other internal project information can be accessed from the Project menu:
The new Project Information dialog shows the description on the right side, as well as:
The project’s owner: the user who created the project (it can also be assigned by a company admininistrator).
The project’s creation date
The number of layers and scenarios used by the project. Its layers are the same for all users, but the scenarios may vary.
Raster width, height, resolution and area. These parameters give information about the extent, size and scale of the project. The larger the raster width and height of the project, the longer its layers and results will take to process.
Internal coordinate system name and ID. All data in Pathfinder is internally projected to a UTM coordinate system. Its UTM zone and EPSG ID are provided here. When the path results are exported, a copy is saved in this coordinate system.
Note
Scenario descriptions can also be added when creating them. For now, these descriptions are available from Pathfinder’s administration tool. A scenario information dialog will be available soon.
Results Panel Enhancements¶
As users create more scenarios, generate more results and use more cost models, we added some options to improve the presentation of information in the Results panel.
Tabbed Results¶
Instead of showing the Resistance Maps, Corridor and Paths stacked on top of each other, users can now split them in separate tabs by using the corresponding option in the View menu:
In this mode, each tab will show only one type of result, leaving room to view and manage more items.
Path Indicator Display¶
A number of important indicators can be available for each path. In previous versions, only the basic cost was shown in the Results panel next to each path. Now the user can pick which indicator will be displayed, the path distance or one of the cost model results.
More Information At Hand¶
Other improvements developed for Pathfinder 3.3 provide users with useful information to make their workflows easier.
Datasets¶
The My Datasets tab in the user profile now shows additional information about each company dataset:
Which projects use this dataset? (So, if the dataset is not used any more, it can be deleted).
What is the upload date of the data? (If the data is old, it may require a new update).
What is the number of features in the dataset? (For vector data)
Process duration¶
Estimating the duration of a process in Pathfinder is nearly impossible because of the many factors involved, including how many other processes there are, but now the Process Log shows the time it’s taking for each process to complete, so the users have an approximate estimation of how long it will take to run it again in similar conditions.
Identify coordinates¶
The Identify tool can be used to find the resistance values at a selected point in the Map or 3D views.
Now it also reports the latitude and longitude of the selected point.
Ring width information¶
For feature data, the size of layer rings (buffers) is defined for all the users in the Layer Preprocessing panel, but the resistances of each ring are defined in the Layer Resistances panel and the layer’s side panel, for each scenario.
In the 3.3 version, the Layer Resistances panel and the layer’s side panel show a tip with the width or size associated to each ring, so we remember them as we define its resistance values.
