Simulation Manager Dialog

The Simulation Manager (SM) dialog provides access to simulations as they proceed and also to results that have previously been generated. You can use it load results either to the standalone Results Viewer or to the inbuilt DesignBuilder results display screen.

The SM dialog can be accessed from within DesignBuilder using the toolbar icon or from outside DesignBuilder from the Start button > All programs > DesignBuilder > Simulation Manager. When opening the Simulation Manager dialog you will see something like the screenshot below.

Or when a batch of optimisation simulations is running:

Behaviour is different depending on whether the application is loaded from within DesignBuilder and if so whether you are at building level or below. In the latter case, only the simulation results for the current building are displayed. Alternatively if you start the SM dialog from outside DesignBuilder or from site level with a model open or when no model is open from the Opening screen then all simulations (sometimes referred to as "jobs") are displayed.

Load results to DesignBuilder

If you opened the SM dialog from DesignBuilder and you are at building level or below in the model then the Load results to DesignBuilder icon will be available. Clicking on this causes the results for the currently selected simulation to be loaded to the DesignBuilder Simulation screen. You must go the Simulation screen to actually view the results.

View results in DesignBuilder Results viewer

Clicking on this icon opens the results for the selected simulation to the Results Viewer application including data stored in both the EnergyPlus tabular summary html and eso output files.

Tip: To load multiple result sets to the same Results Viewer session you should first select multiple simulation jobs before clicking on the View results in DesignBuilder Results viewer toolbar icon. This allows you to view results from a number of simulations on the same graph.

View files associated with current simulation

Selecting this command opens a list of all of the files associated with the simulation currently selected including both input and outputs files.

From here you can save a file to disk or open it using the application currently associated with the file extension.

This option is only available for simulations that have completed.

Stop current simulation

If the currently selected simulation is still running then it can be terminated using this command. In this case simulation results will not be available.

Delete selected simulations

To delete one or more simulation result sets select the jobs for deletion using <Ctrl> mouse click and press the Delete selected simulations toolbar icon to remove all data for the selected simulation jobs including any input and output files.

Settings

The Settings command provides access to the Simulation Server Settings dialog which allows you to view and control some of the settings used by the Simulation Manager on local and network machines.

Simulation Servers Dialog

You can view the status of each of the connected servers as well as the machine-dependent maximum possible number of parallel simulations and also the maximum number of parallel simulations. There is also a checkbox to allow servers to be selected/deselected. When a server on the list is deselected then its jobs do not appear in the main SM window.

You can access all settings for the server by clicking on the Simulation Server Settings toolbar icon to open a dialog. Depending on your Windows privileges you may or may not be able to edit the following settings:

• Current parallel simulations - the maximum number of parallel simulations that can be run. This can be any number up to the limit on the server.
• Logging enabled - tick this to enable logging to help track down any issues. You may be asked to use this option by the Support Desk if you run into any problems with the SM.
• EnergyPlus logging enabled - tick this to enable logging of EnergyPlus simulation messages to help track down any issues. You may be asked to use this option by the Support Desk if you run into any problems with the SM.

Simulation Server Settings (without Administrator rights)

Simulation Server Settings (with Administrator rights)

Depending on what else the machine is being used for you should be careful not to allow the simulations to use all of the processing capacity of the machine. The maximum value allowed is 1 less than the number of processors on the machine. For powerful machines the number of processors will typically be equal to the number of physical cores x 2, so for a 4 core machine with 8 virtual processors you cannot enter a value here greater than 7 which would allow you to run up to 7 parallel simulations. If the machine is being used for other applications as well as DesignBuilder you should leave at least 2 processors. For quad core machines with 8 virtual processors a good upper limit will be between 4 and 6.

You can also use this dialog to stop and restart the localhost server.

Clearing Cached Versions of EnergyPlus

If you have been informed by the Support Desk about an update or if there was some problem with the download initially then you can ensure that the programs will downloaded again by clicking on the Clear Cache Now button before running new simulations using the Simulation Manager.

You may notice that simulations take a little longer to carry out the first time as EnergyPlus needs to be downloaded. After this EnergyPlus is cached and the download is not necessary.

The first time you request a simulation in the Simulation Manager for a particular version of EnergyPlus (or after clearing the cache) you must have an Internet connection to allow EnergyPlus to be downloaded.