Stardis Solver Release Notes git repository

Version 0.16.1

Corrected net flux calculation on surfaces with several Robin boundary conditions. Depending on the configuration, such a calculation could be impossible and return an error.
Improve the performance of external flux calculations by avoiding the need to calculate the contribution of external flux for surfaces with zero emissivity.
Mitigate numerical errors when sampling radiative paths.

Version 0.16

Add support for custom sampling of solid paths

Add the sample_path functor as a member variable of the sdis_solid_shader data structure which, once defined, is called to sample a trajectory in this solid, instead of relying on the internal sampling procedures for unsteady conductive paths (i.e. walk on delta sphere or walk on sphere).

Coupling takes place as usual, i.e. at the boundary. Only path sampling is delegated to the caller. In other words, the connection physics remain the same, and the user only has control over the physical model of the custom solid.

Note that to help the user map the sampled path to the solver limits (i.e. the geometry reached by the path), we added the sdis_primkey API which constructs a unique key from the vertices of a segment/triangle. We can then use this key as input to the new functions sdis_scene_get_s<2|3>d_primitive to find the solver primitive which corresponds to this segment/triangle. It is therefore sufficient to know the exact coordinates of the boundary mesh to geometrically couple the paths sampled by the user with the boundaries of the geometries managed by the solver.

Correcting the sampling of radiative paths

Allows sampling of radiative paths in enclosures with multiple media. Multiple media are often used to define a set of Robin boundary conditions. And although sampling a convective path in such an enclosure is an error (since it is outside the space of convective paths), it is still possible to sample radiative paths in this enclosure (it is perfectly defined in the space of radiative paths).

For example, it is now possible to render an infrared image of a system with a set of Robin boundary conditions defined from a set of fluids with fixed temperatures.

Bug fixes

Fixes the sdis_solve_probe_boundary_list function. The calculation did not use the expected number of threads, which could lead to an invalid memory access.
Updated error handling when resolving temperatures for several probes. The calculation of a probe no longer stops as soon as a realisation is rejected. As with the calculation of a single probe, if a result is rejected, it is simply not taken into account in the estimate.
Corrects numerical problems when sampling a conductive path with WoS. The thresholds used to detect/manage numerical problems were calculated from absolute distances in metres. This method was not numerically robust when these distances were very small. They are now calculated in relation to the delta of the solid, which must be able to take account of spatio-temporal temperature gradients while being large enough to allow numerical estimation.
Corrects the position of the path when the initial condition is reached during the sampling of a conductive path with WoS. The unit used to update the position was wrong when the fp_to_meter variable was not set to 1. In addition, the position at which the initial condition was reached could be outside the solid.

Version 0.15.2

Correction of pkg-config file. A missing private dependency could lead to link editing errors when the user statically links to the library.

Version 0.15.1

Make the radiative environment time-dependent, so that it can vary not only with respect to the direction along path that reaches it, but also as a function of time at which it is reached.

Version 0.15

New conduction algorithm

Addition of a new algorithm for sampling a potentially unsteady conductive path based on the Walk on Sphere (WoS) algorithm. Currently, unlike the previous delta sphere algorithm, the initial condition must be constant for the solid. Power density is also supported, but unlike the delta sphere algorithm, it too cannot vary in time and space. In all cases, the two algorithms coexist and can be selected via a new input parameter to the resolution functions. By default, the delta sphere algorithm is used.

Note that the WoS algorithm is considered unbiased when sampling a diffuse trajectory in a solid with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Even if a numerical parameter is used to stop the algorithm when the trajectory is close to the boundary, this distance can be set to the machine's accuracy without significant impact on performance. Hence its unbiased nature in relation to numerical precision. Its coupling with other boundary or connection conditions behaves as with the delta sphere algorithm, i.e. the solution tends towards the exact solution when the delta tends towards 0.

External spherical source

An external spherical source can be added to the scene. Once defined, it is considered as a new boundary condition whose contribution is calculated at the solid/fluid interfaces in the form of an external net flux. A new interface parameter controls on which solid/fluid interfaces this external net flux is imposed. By default, when an external source is defined, its contribution is calculated on all solid/fluid interfaces. We point out that the radiative properties of the surface can now vary according to the radiative source, which can now be internal or external.

The net external flux is calculated by sampling the radiative paths to evaluate the direct and diffuse part of the incident flux due to the external source. We emphasize that Stardis-Solver does not manage semi-traparent media, but that the external source provides the optional diffuse_radiance parameter which, once defined, corresponds to the radiance emitted by the external source and diffused at least once into the environment. In this way, the diffuse part of the flux manages not only the radiation from the external source that reaches the interface after one or more reflections, but also the external radiation scattered in the environment, here simply represented by the diffuse_radiance parameter.

The external spherical source is defined by its position, radius, power and diffuse radiance (see above). While the radius is constant, the position and power are time-dependent, and the diffuse radiance also depends on the direction along which the sampled trajectory reaches the environment.

The external spherical source is fully supported when estimating the green function. Only the positions of the spherical source must remain the same between green function estimation and use.

Finally, as with net imposed fluxes and power densities, this external source term cannot be used when solving non-linear radiative exchanges using Picard iterations.

Allow relative temperatures

Allow to perform calculations relative to a given temperature T. In this case, the temperatures managed by Stardis would be relative to T and could therefore be negative, since they would express a deviation from T. It should be noted that reference temperatures must always be positive, i.e. expressed in the absolute domain. Finally, we emphasize that relative calculations only make sense in linear situations, i.e. negative temperatures are not valid for systems with non-linear radiative exchanges.

This is a major break in the API that callers must take into account. Until now, negative temperatures were considered as unknown temperatures, whereas they are now valid. For example, an interface with a negative temperature could be considered adiabatic, whereas it is now a Dirichlet boundary condition. In other words, the same data could define totally different systems before or after this version.

The macro SDIS_TEMPERATURE_NONE is added to define the unknown temperature value. The two helper macros SDIS_TEMPERATURE_IS_KNOWN and SDIS_TEMPERATURE_IS_UNKNOWN are also provided to test whether the temperature is known or not.

Parallelize multiple probe resolutions

Add sdis_solve_probe_list and sdis_solve_probe_boundary_list functions. Unlike their single-probe counterpart, these functions parallelize the list of probes, rather than parallelizing Monte Carlo realizations. Calling these functions is therefore more advantageous in terms of load distribution when the number of probes to be evaluated is large compared to the cost of calculating a single probe.

Miscellaneous

Updated the function profile used to define surface radiative properties, i.e. surface emissivity and specular fraction. These can now vary according to the source identifier (internal or external).
Make the radiative environment programmable. From now on, its API is the same as that of other resources such as interfaces or media. Its temperature and reference temperature are retrieved by functions whose input argument is the direction of the radiative path.
Add an optional user filter function as input argument to sdis_scene_find_closest_point function. The user can set their own filter function to manage the candidate points to be closest. This gives the caller a fine control during the inquiry to access the geometry and traversal of the accelerating structure.
CMake has been replaced by Makefile as the build system, and a pkg-config file is provided to link the library as an external dependency. Compiler and linker flags have also been updated to increase the security and robustness of generated binaries.

Version 0.14

The net flux imposed can be combined with other boundary/connection conditions, i.e. a net flux can be set in addition to convective exchange and radiative transfer.
Added support for plain text log messages. Until now, log messages were intended to be read by a VT100-like terminal and could therefore contain escape sequences that required post-processing to store them in plain text log files.
Added support for user-defined signature on the green function. It allows to check that, when reloaded, a green function is the one expected by the user according to its own constraints that the green function cannot check itself such as, for example, that the same deltas are used in conductive random walks.
Changes the value of the constant SDIS_VOLUMIC_POWER_NONE. Its previous value of zero caused problems during the evaluation of the propagator: a media with a power density of zero was not registered in the list of media with a volumic power. A volumic power that was not zero was therefore not taken into account during the re-evaluation of the propagator. The constant is now set to DBL_MAX, which means that the medium has no power density, while a value of 0 is now treated as any valid power density term.

Version 0.13.1

Fixed compilation errors and compilation warnings displayed on some versions of GCC.

Version 0.13

Non linear radiative transfer

Uses a new iterative numerical method to estimate radiative transfer. With a recursion level of 1, this is equivalent to a linearization of the radiative transfer but with a reference temperature that can vary in time and space. By using a higher-order recursion, one can converge towards a rigorous estimate that takes into account the non-linearity of the radiative transfer; the higher the recursion order, the better the convergence, but with the counterpart of an increase in calculation time.

Distributed memory parallelism

Uses message passing interface to distribute computation across multiple computers. Stardis-Solver now, uses a mixed parallelism: on one computer (i.e. a node), it uses a shared memory parallelism and relies on the message passing interface to parallelize calculations between several nodes.

Type and state of the random number generator

Adds the member input variable rng_type to the solve functions. It defines the type of random number generator to use when no generator is defined. Note that the sdis_solve_camera function does not have a random number generator as an input variable and has therefore been updated to support it.

Reading the source code

Refactoring and deep rewriting of the source code to simplify its reading.

Version 0.12.3

Fix green paths ending in a fluid (transcient computation): The path's end was not correctly registred and the path was later treated as failed.

Version 0.12.2

Sets the required version of Star-SampPling to 0.12. This version fixes compilation errors with gcc 11 but introduces API breaks.
Fix warnings detected by gcc 11.

Version 0.12.1

Updates the way numerical issues are handled during a conductive random walk. Previously, a zealous test would report a numerical error and stop the calculations when that error could be handled.

Version 0.12

Add the support of thermal contact resistance between two solids: the new thermal_contact_resistance functor on the data structure struct sdis_interface_shader defines the thermal resistance contact in K.m^2.W^-1 at a given time and at a specific position onto the interface.

Version 0.11

Add support of unsteady green evaluation. The resulting green function can then be used to quickly evaluate the system at the same time but with different limit and initial conditions, volumetric powers and imposed fluxes.
Add checks on green re-evaluation to ensure that the system remains unchanged regarding its scale factor and its reference temperature.
Remove the ambient radiative temperature, the reference temperature and the geometry scale factor from the list of arguments submitted to the solve functions. They become scene arguments defined on scene creation.
Update the sdis_scene_[2d_]create function profile: its data are now grouped into a variable of type struct sdis_scene_create_args.

Version 0.10.1

In green function estimation, the time sent to the user callbacks is no more the elapsed time from the beginning of the realisation: as in a regular computation, it is now the observation time.
Fix the flux computation for boundaries with an imposed flux: it was previously ignored. The new sdis_estimator_get_imposed_flux function returns this estimated flux component.
Return an error if the flux is computed at a boundary whose temperature is known: this configuration is not currently supported.
Fix build with the CL compiler.

Version 0.10

Add support of green function [de]serialization. The sdis_green_function_write function serializes the green function into a stream while the sdis_green_function_create_from_stream function deserialize it. Note that the scene used to deserialize the green function must be the same of the one used to estimate it: the media and the interfaces have to be created in the same order, the scene geometry must be the same, etc.
Add the sdis_scene_find_closest_point function: search the point onto the scene geometry that is the closest of the submitted position.
Add the sdis_compute_power function that evaluates the power of a medium.
Update the solver: the time of the sampled path is now rewind on solid reinjection.

Version 0.9

Update the API of the solve functions: the parameters of the simulation are now grouped into a unique data structure rather than separately submitted as function arguments. Thank to this structure and its default value, updating input parameters should now affect marginally the calling code.
Improve the logger. Add a prefix to the printed text to indicate the type of the message (info, error or warning). Add a progress message during simulation.
Bump the version of the Star-Enclosures <2D|3D> dependencies to 0.5

Version 0.8.2

Fix an issue when the sdis_solve_boundary_flux function was invoked on a boundary with radiative transfer: several sampled paths were rejected due to data inconsistencies.
Fix a memory leak when the scene creation failed.
Enable parallelism on Star-Enclosure[2D] to improve the performances of the enclosure extraction on the setup of the Stardis-Solver scene.

Version 0.8.1

Fix a solver issue that led to reject valid sampled paths.
Bump the version of the Star-Enclosure[2D] libraries to 0.4.2. These versions fix a numerical issue that might led to an infinite loop at the scene creation.

Version 0.8

Drastically improve the robustness of the solver~: far less realisations are now rejected.
Add the estimation of the time spent per realisation estimate. Add the sdis_estimator_get_realisation_time function that returns this estimate.
Add the sdis_estimator_buffer API~: it manages a two dimensional array of regular estimators and provides global estimations over the whole estimators saved into the buffer.
Update the signature of the sdis_solve_camera function~: it now returns a sdis_estimator_buffer. It now also supports time integration as well as heat paths registration.

Version 0.7

Add Green function support

Provide new solve functions that compute and save the Green function, i.e. the propagator used in regular solvers. The resulting Green function can be then evaluated to obtain an estimate of the temperature.

The time spent to compute the Green function is comparable to the computation time of regular solvers; actually, they rely on the same code. However, its evaluation is instantaneous while it still handles the limit conditions, the boundary fluxes and the power term of the media at the moment of the evaluation. This means that one can estimate the Green function of a system only one time and then evaluate it with different limit conditions, boundary fluxes or power terms with negligible computation costs.

Currently, Stardis-Solver assumes that during the Green function estimation, the properties of the system do not depend on time. In addition, it assumes that the boundary fluxes and the volumetric powers are constants in time and space. Anyway, on Green function evaluation, the limit conditions of the system can still vary in time and space; systems in steady state can be simulated with Green functions.

Add heat path registration

Add the int register_paths mask to almost all solve functions to enable the registration against the returned estimator of the failure and/or successful random paths used by the solvers. For each path, the registered data are:

the vertices of the path;
the type of the path (failed or succeed);
the type of the path vertices (conductive, convective or radiative);
the Monte-Carlo weight of each path vertex;
the current time of each path vertex.

Note that the amount of registered data can be huge if too more paths are registered. Consequently, this functionality should be used with few realisations to obtain a subset of representative paths, or to only register the few paths that failed in order to diagnose what went wrong.

Miscellaneous

Add the sdis_solve_medium function: it estimates the average temperature of a medium.
Fix the setup of the interfaces: the interface associated to a geometric primitive could not be the right one.

Version 0.6.1

Bump version of the Star-Enclosures[2D] dependencies: the new versions fix issues in the construction of fluid enclosures.
Bump version of the Star-<2D|3D> dependencies: the new versions rely on Embree3 rather than on Embree2 for their ray-tracing back-end.

Version 0.6

Add the sdis_solve_boundary function: it computes the average temperature on a subset of geometric primitives.
Add flux solvers: the new sdis_solve_probe_boundary_flux and sdis_solve_boundary_flux functions estimate the convective and radiative fluxes at a given surface position or for a sub-set of geometric primitives, respectively.
Add support of time integration: almost all solvers can estimate the average temperature on a given time range. Only the sdis_solve_camera function does not support time integration, yet.
Add support of an explicit initial time t0 for the fluid.
Fix a bug in the estimation of unknown fluid temperatures: the associativity between the internal Stardis-Solver data and the user defined data was wrong.

Version 0.5

Add support of fluid enclosure with unknown uniform temperature.

The convection coefficient of the surfaces surrounding a fluid whose temperature is unknown can vary in time and space. Anyway, the caller has to ensure that for each triangle of the fluid enclosure, the convection coefficient returned by its struct sdis_interface_shader - at a given position and time - is less than or equal to the convection_coef_upper_bound parameter of the shader.

Version 0.4

Full rewrite of how the volumetric power is taken into account.

Change the scheme of the random walk "solid re-injection": use a 2D re-injection scheme in order to handle 2D effects. On one hand, this scheme drastically improves the accuracy of the temperature estimation in solid with a volumetric power term. On the other hand it is more sensible to numerical imprecisions. The previous 1D scheme is thus used in situations where the 2D scheme exhibits too numerical issues, i.e. on sharp angles.
Add the missing volumetric power term on solid re-injection.
Add a corrective term to fix the bias on the volumetric power introduced when the random walk progresses at a distance of delta of a boundary.
Add several volumetric power tests.
Remove the delta_boundary parameter of the struct sdis_solid_shader data structure.

Version 0.3

Some interface properties become double sided: the temperature, emissivity and specular fraction is defined for each side of the interface. Actually, only the convection coefficient is shared by the 2 sides of the interface. The per side interface properties are grouped into the new struct sdis_interface_side_shader data structure.
Add the support of fixed fluxes: the flux is a per side interface property. Currently, the flux is handled only for the interface sides facing a solid medium.
Add the sdis_scene_boundary_project_pos function that computes the parametric coordinates of a world space position projected onto a given primitive with respect to its normal. If the projection lies outside the primitive, its parametric coordinates are wrapped against its boundaries in order to ensure that they are valid coordinates into the primitive. Actually, this function was mainly added to help in the definition of the probe position onto a boundary as expected by the sdis_solve_probe_boundary function.
Update the default comportment of the interface shader when a function is not set.
Rename the SDIS_MEDIUM_<FLUID|SOLID> constants in SDIS_<FLUID|SOLID>.
Rename the enum sdis_side_flag enumerate in enum sdis_side and update its values.

Version 0.2

Add the support of volumic power to solid media: add the volumic_power functor to the sdis_solid_shader data structure that, once defined, should return the volumic power of the solid at a specific position and time. On solve invocation, the conductive random walks take into account this spatio-temporal volumic power in the computation of the solid temperature.
Add the sdis_solve_probe_boundary function: it computes the temperature at a given position and time onto a geometric primitive. The probe position is defined by the index of the primitive and a parametric coordinates onto it.
Add the sdis_scene_get_boundary_position function: it computes a world space position from the index of a geometric primitive and a parametric coordinate onto it.
Fix how the sdis_solve_probe was parallelised. The submitted threads_hint parameter was not correctly handled.

Version 0.1

Add the support of radiative temperature.
Add the sdis_camera API: it defines a pinhole camera into the scene.
Add the sdis_accum_buffer API: it is a pool of MC accumulators, i.e. a sum of MC weights and square weights.
Add the sdis_solve_camera function: it relies on a sdis_camera and a sdis_accum_buffer to compute the radiative temperature that reaches each pixel of an image whose definition is defined by the caller. Note that actually this function uses the same underlying MC algorithm behind the sdis_solve_probe function.

Version 0.0

First version and implementation of the Stardis-Solver API.

Support fluid/solid and solid/solid interfaces.
Only conduction is currently fully supported: convection and radiative temperature are not computed yet. Fluid media can be added to the system but currently, Stardis-Solver assumes that their temperature are known.