How to Build a Spatial Link Network

Building a Spatial Link Network

Follow these steps to quickly put together a Spatial Link Network.

Step One: Create Portals as your network nodes.

Select Portal Objects from the Object Palette and lay them out.

Rename the Portals to the Location Names you want for them.

Step Two: Connect Portals with Spatial Links

Click on the Spatial Link button in the Object Palette.

Click on a Portal you want to be the origin for the Link.

Click on another Portal you want the Link to connect to.

A prompt box will appear to name each new spatial object before the link is created.

The link will now be completed, and you can click on it to add bends set colour, width other options.

If the Model’s update interval has not been set, Planimate® will apply a default of 10 seconds, to ensure your items animate across the links when next you run. You can adjust this Update Interval to alter the smoothness of th animation from under Run in the Menu Bar.

Step Three: Specify Transit Target

Place a change object inside the original Portal.

To specify the transit target click on the change object and select Run Routine

Add a “Spatial Link” operation to the Routine to specify the Transit Target. It will look like this:

Step Four: Specify Transit Time

As with the Transit Target editing, click on the change object and select Run Routine, then add an operation to edit the transit time by clicking the space bar. It will look like this:

Step Five: Final Structuring

Add the path to direct the item, and place a capacity object before the Portal Exit.

Check that the Routine in the Change Object is set to “Only when Item take Path”.

You can now test your item’s traverse along the Link during a run.