ThermoTun - Output
ThermoTun allows you to have as much or as little output as you want. It is rarely necessary to inspect conditions in detail throughout a tunnel system. More often, you will wish to inspect conditions at particular locations - e.g. inside a train or on station escalators.
The various forms of output are:
- Tabular output files suitable for input into spreadsheets. Many users use tabular output almost exclusively and pass it directly to in-house packages for graphical display. This can facilitate compatibility with other in-house design packages.
- Text files suitable for driving the graph package GraphTun, which is supplied free of charge with ThermoTun. This facility makes it possible to display results in graphical form without any additional manipulation of the output. The graphs can be viewed on the screen, printed in report quality or converted into bitmaps.
- User-specific formats. Some users have found it useful to commission purpose-written output routines to create files that can be input directly into other simulation packages.
- Text file listing the information used by the program. This is more comprehensive than the user's own data because it includes values chosen by default as well as values provided explicitly.
- Failure messages. ThermoTun has comprehensive data checking routines that try to trap inconsistencies in input data. Sometimes, however, it is not feasible to detect these at the input stage (e.g. incompatible train schedules leading to a collision long after the simulation has begun). In the rare event of failure, ThermoTun's messages are usually sufficiently specific for you to pinpoint the cause of the problem.