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ENVI-met Output Files

Overview

Each ENVI-met simulation creates a huge amount of data which is organized in different files and folders. In general, there are two different types of output files regardless their content:

  • Simple Text Files: Files which contain data in pure ASCII text format. Usually, the content of the file are described in the first row of the file. These file can be read and visiualized with any software that can read text files (which should be about every piece of software that can visiualize data).
  • Binary Files (EDX/EDT): The main ENVI-met output files are stored in a binary format and require special software to be read. The LEONARDO 2014 software included in the ENVI-met system offers a comfortable and visual access to all data and give various options for 2D and 3D visualisation. In addition, with the help of the reference for the EDX/EDT file format, own reader routines can easily be developed.

Name and storage logic

The huge amount of data generated by each simulation requires a strict concept of storage and labelling in order not to loose overview or to overwrite files. ENVI-met uses a three-level concept to organize the output data:

  • Level 1: Storage by folder name
  • Level 2: Classification by filename
  • Level 3: Metadata information in the . EDX File

Level 1: Storage by folder name

[Root output folders of ENVI-met 4]

The uppermost level of file organisation starts by sorting the output files into subfolders of the selected output folders. The figure above shows the folder structure of a typical ENVI-met output folder (some folders are only existing in the Advanced version of ENVI-met). All files in one folder are of the same structure and contain the same set of information, some of the output folders are further organized in sub folders. The following list summarizes the basic content of the folders. For more information, click on the “→Read more…” below

  1. Atmosphere
    All information about the state of the atmosphere at different times of model simulation. Definitely the largest set of data and mostly considered as “the” model result (which is not true as the other data are very important, too). →Read more...
  2. Buildings
    Data along the canvas (facades and roofs) of the buildings. Includes static data such as material, albedo (folder STATIC) as well as dynamic data of meteorology along the building and building physics data (folder DYNAMIC, ENVI-met Advanced only). →Read more…
  3. Inflow
    Data about the inflow model of ENVI-met used to represent the surroundings of the model domain that cannot be modelled in the given scale. →Read more…
  4. Log
    A copy of the ENVI-met outputs generated during the model run. →Read more…
  5. Pollutants
    Data about pollutant concentration in the model atmosphere (only present if pollutants are used in the model). →Read more…
  6. Radiation
    Detailed data sets about the different radiation fluxes in the model. →Read more…
  7. Receptors
    Time series and profile data at defined receptor points in the model (if defined) →Read more…
  8. Soils
    State if the ENVI-met soil model →Read more…
  9. SolarAccess
    Detailed analysis on solar access data such as solargrams, sun hours, etc (ENVI-met Advanced only) →Read more…
  10. Surface
    State of the soil surface as an interface between the atmosphere and the soil model →Read more…

In addition, the BIOMet tool will create further folders, by default labled “Biomet”, but with a free choie of names.
Future versions or additional modules of ENVI-met will create further folders and file, but the general concept of storge will be the same.

Level 2: Classification by filename

Sorting the output files into folders provides a first system of order in the output data. However, once a file has been moved out of its folder or if several simulations come together, this system is not unique and not persistent. As a solution, the ENVI-met file name generation scheme allows a direct identification of the simulation files and their content.

[Logic of ENVI-met output files file name generation]

Each ENVI-met output filename consists of 3 parts:

  1. Simulation Base Name: This is the given working name for the simulation. You define this name in the .SIMX simulation configuration file. It should be not too log (as more data are added) and unique. In the example above, urbanLayout has been selected as basename.
  2. Type identifier: The type identifier describes the content of the file following the categories listed above. For example _AT_ defines that this file holds atmospheric data. The different content ids are listed in the description of the output files categories and at the end of this page.
  3. Time of data: The last part of the filename represents the model time the data were taken. In the example above, the file represents the stae of the atmosphere (_AT_) at 13:00 model time. If the data in the file are not time sensitive, this part of the filename is empty.

Level 3: Metatadata information in EDX file

Level 1 and 2 provide a good information basis about the content of a simulations file and they where the only sources of information in ENVI-met versions prior to V4. However, files get moved and files get renamed. For that reason, starting from ENVI-met Version 4, each data file again holds detailed information about its data type in the metadata stored in the EDX information file, in the <data_content> section. For all ENVI-met tools, this is the evaluated information when working with data files. All ENVI-met tools try to interpret data files coming from older ENVI-met versions, but this import process might not work in all cases.

File Identifiers

_AT_ : Atmospheric data file

(to be cont.)

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