🌇 Overview
🌏 Global Parameters
🥇 Installation Priority
🔨 Technical Design Rules
⚽️ Penalty Design Rules
💰 Cost Design Rules
🔧 Configuring the Core Design Rules
This module contains everything you need to know about the core design rules of Optioneer! 🧱
This module explains the functionality of core design rules of Optioneer, when and why they should be activated. These design rules may vary slightly for each asset in Optioneer. For more information on the specifications for asset-specific design rules follow the links in the 'technical specification' sections of this article.
🌇 Overview
The core design rules of Optioneer can be described using Figure 1. There are five key elements to note here: global parameters, asset installation priority and the assets which are made up of technical design rules, penalty design rules and cost design rules. These are discussed individually throughout this article.
The flow of data begins with global parameters for electricity assets or with the technical design rules for pipelines and offshore assets. The user defines the technical, cost and penalty inputs for each asset and the outputs are sent to the asset installation priority component. This component determines where to put each asset.
Figure 1. This schematic shows the relationship between the core design rules in Optioneer. The outputs from the global parameters feed into the assets. Each asset has three design rules which define the technical factors, penalties and costs associated with that relevant asset. The outputs from these provide inputs to the asset installation priority design rule which determines the most suitable asset to be placed along the length of the route.
🌏 Global Parameters
The global parameters design rule groups together parameters that are used across a project. This is done to maintain the consistency of values across the project. This includes parameters such as the cost of concrete or the cost of earthworks.
This design rule:
must be activated, if available
affects the generation of routes and
affects the outputs of Optioneer.
🥇 Installation Priority
This design rule implements the multi-asset functionality in Optioneer. It selects an asset type at each point along the route based on technical limits and a user-defined priority. Each asset must be ranked in order of preference (1 = lowest, 4 = highest). This priority will often reflect the cost or preference of the asset type for that development.
This functionality is illustrated in Figure 2. A sample route is illustrated from ‘start’ to ‘end’. The asset installation priority design rule will first determine the candidate assets along the length of the route. This is all of the assets that can be placed at every point along a route based on the technical limits. It will then combine these with the user-defined priorities to provide the selected assets for each route. Where more than one asset can be placed on the route, the asset with the highest priority will be selected subject to no technical limits being exceeded.
Figure 2. This schematic demonstrates the functionality of the asset installation priority design rules. The design rule collects all of the candidate assets at each point along a route. This is combined with the user-defined priorities to select the most suitable asset for each route.
This design rule:
must be activated
affects the generation of routes and,
affects the outputs of Optioneer.
🔨 Technical Design Rules
The parameters specified in this design rule define the technical limits for assets. These vary for each asset but it allows the user to the define:
❌ no go zones (based on the GIS layers)
⛰ the maximum elevation an asset can be installed at
⛷ the maximum slope an asset can be installed on along with other technical limits
Technical design rules
must be activated for all assets you would like considered
affects the generation of routes
affects the outputs of Optioneer
⚽️ Penalty Design Rules
Penalties are the mechanism by which Optioneer understands if things are good or bad to traverse whilst routing. See Module 2.2 for more details on what penalties represent and how they are configured.
Penalty feeds in the MOO (multi-objective optimisation) functionality of Optioneer, in that penalties are one of the objectives that Optioneer aims to minimise. In other words, Optioneer aims to minimise the distance traversed through constraints such as woodland and steep slopes. And so, this design rule must be activated for all assets that you want to be considered.
Penalty design rules
must be activated for all assets you would like considered
affect the generation of routes
affect the outputs of Optioneer
make up one of the objectives Optioneer aims to minimise.
💰 Cost Design Rules
Cost is a fundamental metric for any infrastructure development. Optioneer contains a CAPEX model which takes account of:
🪨 materials
🙅 crossings
🛣 incurred costs due to traversing constraints or the following of infrastructure.
Cost design rules will vary depending on the assets you are considering. Similar to penalty design rules, the costs feed into the MOO functionality of Optioneer and so is one of the objectives that Optioneer aims to minimise.
Cost design rules
must be activated for all assets you would like considered
affect the generation of routes
affect the outputs of Optioneer
make up one of the objectives Optioneer aims to minimise
🔧 Configuring the Core Design Rules
With these core design rules, Optioneer can be developed to auto-generate route options for your infrastructure project.
Create a config.
Go to the Parameters Page and create a configuration, or select one that already exits.
Select the configuration you wish to edit to see the list of design rules.
Activate the required design rules.
Global Parameters: Check the default values are suitable for your project.
Installation Priority: Check that the assets you would like to consider have the correct numbers assigned to them.
Activate the technical design rule for the relevant asset.
This dataset requires GIS data so Optioneer will prompt you to connect the relevant datasets.
Check the default values in the technical design rule are suitable or amend them appropriately.
Activate the penalty design rule for the relevant asset.
Assign penalties to the constraints. See Onboarding 2.2: Constraint Classification for more details on constraint classification.
Activate the cost design rules
Assign costs to the asset and relevant layers. If you do not have the required costs at this stage, use our default costs to obtain a comparative estimate.
🧠 Things to know about the core design rules:
If the costs for constraints are not configured, Optioneer will produce a near-straight line in the results. This is because the CAPEX will largely be determined by the length of the route.