Boundary conditions are created in sets for the purpose of managing community ingress and egress behavior for a simulation scenario. A set can hold one or more span features where each span has independent settings for movement direction and community properties.
Right-clicking the Boundary Condition layer group name will display a menu with the following items for creating sets within the project (Figure). The Expand and Collapse menu options opens and closes all layer tree nodes within the Boundary Conditions group, respectively. The Show Id menu option toggles the default setting for display of span labels in map windows. The Add Set… menu option displays a dialog prompting the user to name a new Boundary Condition Set. Once a name is defined, a new node will appear under Boundary Conditions containing directional nodes for In, Out and Undeclared. The Import Set… menu option opens a dialog for importing boundary condition sets from another EFMSim project.
Figure. Boundary Condition Sets are added via a right-click menu.
Once a boundary condition set has been created, right-clicking its name will display a menu containing a suite of tools for managing the set and associated spans (Figure). The Expand and Collapse menu options opens and closes all layer tree nodes for the selected Boundary Conditions set, respectively. Move menu options reposition the selected set amongst other sets within the Boundary Conditions node, which adjusts drawing order in map windows. When only one set is present, move options are disabled. The Show Id menu option toggles display of span labels in the map for spans within the set. Span labels are useful for locating spans listed in the Boundary Conditions Editor, as described below. The Add Span… menu option activates span drawing mode and changes the mouse cursor to a “+” symbol when it is located over a Layout Map. Specifics for how to draw spans are described in the next section.
Figure. Right-click menu options for a Boundary Condition Set.
The Import Span menu option opens a dialog for copying spans from other boundary condition sets in the project to the current set (Figure).
Figure. Spans can be shared between boundary condition sets via an import span interface.
As spans are drawn along study area edges, spans are subject to becoming out of sync when the study area is redrawn or otherwise changed. The Sync with Study Area menu option snaps spans to the nearest study area boundary. Spans can also be relocated individually via the Boundary Condition Editor, which is a key feature of EFMSim functionality related to boundary conditions. The editor allows users to define span directions and the count and size time series of in-migrants. It is described below.
Boundary condition sets can also be renamed, duplicated, and deleted via right-click menu options.