This file documents the changes made to GeoStudio 2004 since the initial release (version 6.00). The numbers in parentheses after some items refer to a Knowledge Base article with more information. These Knowledge Base articles may be found by visiting the GEO-SLOPE web site at http://www.geo-slope.com.
· Important changes have been made to the use of Piezometric lines and hydrostatic forces.
· The computation of hydrostatic forces has been decoupled from the piezometric line. The piezometric line will now only be used to compute the pore-water pressures in the ground. If you are not concerned with pore-water pressures, then you will not need to draw a piezometric line.
· Pressure boundaries will be applied either normal or vertical to the slope as selected by the user. Pressure boundaries will not be able to exert a lateral pressure on a vertical wall. If you wish to use a pressure boundary for a situation where a vertical wall exists and you want the horizontal force to be considered, you will need to hand-compute a hydrostatic force and apply it on the face of the vertical wall explicitly.
· If you want a hydrostatic pressure to be automatically computed, you will need to use a no-strength material. A piezometric line will still be required to obtain the correct pore-water pressure conditions in the soil.
· A bug was fixed that caused the C-Phi correlation in a probabilistic analysis to be ignored.
· A bug was fixed in slip surface optimization that could cause the optimization process to fail without an optimized solution.
·
A bug was fixed which could cause
GeoStudio to crash when working with a file that starts with a dot (e.g., “.project.gsz”). (KB695)
· A bug was fixed which could cause the coordinate tooltip to display unexpected characters.
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when run on Windows Vista.
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash if left running for a long time without being used.
· Added a new option “Allow Passive Mode” in KeyIn Analysis Settings to allow the modeling of a slope under passive failure mode.
· Changes were made to the “Combined, S=f(depth)” and “Combined, S=f(datum)” strength models when an anisotropic function is used. In this release the anisotropic modifier is only applied to the undrained strength (Cu), which is more consistent with the original intent of the combined models.
·
Improvements were made to the way a surface
water layer is modeled. By doing so,
modeling a water layer with a no-strength soil region or with a pressure line
will result in identical factors of safety.
The horizontal stabilizing force due to the water layer is computed
based on the piezometric surface in both cases.
The pressure load application direction options (Vertical or
· Better error messages are displayed when air gaps or overhanging slopes are detected, or when elements have a null material.
· A bug was fixed in the Hoek-Brown strength function estimation which tended to slightly underestimate the actual strength of the material.
· A bug was fixed in locating the ground surface line when a “None” soil model is used. The “None” soil model is now ignored in location the ground surface line.
· A bug was fixed that could have caused GeoStudio to crash or to give incorrect results when using K functions with a single point.
· A bug was fixed that prevented GeoStudio from running on versions of Windows prior to Windows 2000. (KB691)
· GeoStudio can now be installed without Administrator Rights.
· A bug was fixed which ignored “-lic:student” on the command line of the solvers. This bug could also mean that if GeoStudio was run in Student mode on a computer that also had a full license, the solvers would always run with the full license.
· A bug was fixed which caused some units to not be displayed in KeyIn Functions and Draw Graph.
· Some functions we ship as example files were incorrect and have been adjusted.
· Improved the slip surface optimization process, especially for cases with automatic tension cracks.
· A bug was fixed in soil dowel reinforcement. Depending on the orientation of the outside and inside points, in some cases the soil dowel reinforcement load was missed.
· A bug was fixed in the optimization process that sometimes generated a vertical slip surface at the last slice.
· A bug was fixed in the shear strength computation of the Shensep soil model if free water is modeled as a pressure boundary.
· The slip surface combo box in the Method toolbar was widened, so it can display slip surface numbers into the 10s of thousands without cutting off the FOS value.
· Sketch text now shows probabilistic values for C & Phi and other values, and includes the C-Phi Correlation Coefficient in the list of common fields for Anisotropic Function materials.
· An incorrect link was fixed in the online help topic KeyIn Slip Surface Axis Point.
· The default FOS value for drawing safety maps is now rounded down rather than using simple rounding.
· A bug was fixed which collapsed 3-cornered radius boxes down to a line.
· Removed Applied Load and Bond Resistance from the Soil Dowel dialog box, because those values are not used by soil dowels.
· A bug was fixed which could prevent sensitivity and probabilistic values from being entered for Ru and Bbar.
· A bug was fixed which caused SIGMA/W’s C and Phi values to overwrite the C and Phi values in SLOPE/W. (KB626)
·
Improved the Insitu2 method in the estimation
of the initial stress state using a two-staged approach. (KB693)
· A bug was fixed which caused SIGMA/W’s C and Phi values to overwrite the C and Phi values in SLOPE/W. (KB626)
· Improved the Insitu Static method in the estimation of the initial stress state using a two-staged approach. (KB693)
· Improved transient solve times by at least 10%.
Please note: Version 6.19 fixes two important bugs introduced in version 6.18 (see the notes under All Products and SLOPE/W below). If you are currently at version 6.18, or at version 6.19 build 1705, we strongly recommend you upgrade to version 6.19 build 1707. Note that two different versions of 6.19 were released. Check Help – About and ensure you have build 1707.
· A bug was fixed that was introduced in version 6.18. For people whose locale settings had a comma as the decimal character (or anything other than a period), GeoStudio would corrupt their data files when saving, and would display incorrect error messages in some cases when entering data. (KB687)
· A bug was fixed that was introduced in version 6.18. In some cases when using results from a SEEP/W analysis in SLOPE/W, and when a pressure line was used to model a water layer, the factor of safety would be too low. (KB684)
· A bug was fixed in fully coupled consolidation problems with seepage review boundaries. The bug caused some head BCs to accumulate at each review step instead of being reset.
· KeyIn Climate Data now allows negative Net Radiation values.
· A minor bug was fixed in the KeyIn Climate Data dialog box which caused the Potential Evaporation value to be hidden the first time you opened the dialog box for a brand new problem.
·
A bug was fixed which prevented users in
certain countries (especially Asian) from using non-Latin characters in
filenames. (KB590)
· Network licensing is more fault-tolerant. A network license server can now be unavailable for a short time while GeoStudio has a license checked out without immediately forcing GeoStudio to shut down.
·
A bug was fixed which caused some default
values to be metric even when the user chose imperial units. (KB664)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when run from a network drive when the local computer has .NET 2.0 installed. (KB677)
· A bug was fixed which prevented online help from working properly when GeoStudio was run from a network drive. (KB679)
· A bug was fixed with dynamic sketch text which could make the Materials tab of the Field Chooser ignore certain material properties. (KB683)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to think a file had changed (and thus prompt you to save it) every time it was opened.
·
A bug was fixed which
would cause most of the toolbars to disappear if you had a file open but were
at the Start Page when you last shut down GeoStudio. (KB559)
· A bug we thought was fixed in version 6.17 was still happening in certain situations. It has now been fixed again. The bug could freeze the entire computer for seconds or even minutes at a time when zoomed way in on a thick dashed line such as a piezometric line or a contour line.
· A bug was fixed which could in rare cases cause GeoStudio to hang for five minutes and then crash if it is run too quickly after rebooting a machine. (KB681)
· A bug was fixed which could potentially cause strange contours to be drawn when the value being contoured varied only slightly.
· A bug was fixed which, when GeoStudio was run on the same computer that was hosting a license server, could indicate on the Start Page that an updated license file was available but could not be downloaded—or could indicate that an updated license file was downloaded—every time GeoStudio was run.
· A bug was fixed which could cause Zoom Objects to leave lots of white space around the model.
· A bug was fixed exporting the “^” character to DXF.
· Improvements were made to the optimization process to avoid over-projection of first and last segments.
· Improvements were made on bedrock controlled slip surfaces.
· Improvements were made in the checking of thin slices using a constant 0.001 unit.
· Improvements were made in the modeling of the surface water layer with a pressure boundary. The pressure load is always applied vertically and the horizontal stabilizing force of the water layer is automatically added to the ends of the sliding mass.
· In Draw Safety Map, the minimum contour level did not have a default value. Now it’s set to the minimum computed factor of safety. Additionally, the default values for the number of levels and the increment size were such that the map would cover the entire range of computed FOS. This has been changed to more helpful values.
· The bond length of a non-critical slip surface will now be displayed if detailed results were saved.
· A small tolerance is now allowed when checking slip surface exit angles so as to minimize invalid slip surfaces simply due to numerical round off.
· A minor change was made to the FOS display on the SOLVE window after solving a probabilistic analysis.
· A probabilistic graph can now be displayed even when a particular method does not give any valid FOS.
· A bug was fixed in the handling of surface water layers next to vertical slopes.
· A bug was fixed in the slice weight calculation when a thin slice is dropped.
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when importing a v5 file and converting soil lines to regions.
· A bug was fixed which caused GeoStudio to crash when a “Shear/Normal function” soil model is selected but the strength function is not available.
· Removed the Student License restriction disallowing an initial water table when opening a file.
· A bug was fixed averaging shear and moment on beam nodes.
· Additional parameters are available for graphing, contouring, and in View Node Info or View Element Info in CONTOUR: Peak Acceleration, Velocity, Displacement.
· Modified the Rayleigh damping method to give better results at higher frequencies.
· A bug was fixed which made it impossible to graph a history node if it was the last node in the mesh.
· A bug was fixed computing the maximum acceleration for acceleration vectors, which could make them all appear too long or too short.
· A bug was fixed saving peak values for nodes outside the mesh.
· A bug was fixed which displayed some graphs rotated 90 degrees by default.
· A bug was fixed averaging shear and moment on beam nodes.
· A bug was fixed which displayed the wrong description for Modifier Functions in View Node Info.
· A bug was fixed where the Modifier Function number in the Draw BC dialog box was being initialized incorrectly, so when the dialog box first appeared, the Modifier Function number was set to the same number as the Boundary Function number.
· A bug was fixed with the Student License that prevented reading 2-point diffusion functions.
· Any elapsed time can now be used as a starting step.
· A bug was fixed in root depth calculations, which could result in negative root uptake.
· A bug was fixed in adaptive time stepping when a seepage review loop would reach its maximum iterations. Now, if there is room, the time step will reduce by half and the step will repeat.
· A bug was fixed initializing the Tri or Rect option in the Root Depth dialog box.
·
Automatic License Updates have been
improved. Version 6.14 and up would
alert you when a new license was available.
Version 6.17 will download and install it automatically if it is able. (KB644, KB660)
·
GeoStudio now notices when a USB
key is attached or detached, and updates the list of licensed analyses on the
Start Page accordingly.
·
The Start Page will now indicate an
analysis is unavailable (grayed out) if there is a license for it on the
network but the network option is disabled on the Manage Licenses dialog box.
·
DXF imports have been
improved. You now have the option to let
GeoStudio update your problem extents automatically to match the imported DXF
or not, and you can have the extents updated even if you are importing the DXF
as a background picture rather than as regions.
·
On a Tablet PC configured for right-handed usage, the
coordinate tooltip will display to the left of the mouse cursor so it is not
hidden by the user’s hand.
· A bug was fixed which affected selecting nodes along a line (such as in Draw Boundary Conditions or Draw Graph). In some cases certain nodes would not be selected.
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash intermittently at startup.
· A bug was fixed in the File Export command. When exporting as a DXF file, color 0 was used instead of color 7.
· GeoStudio should start up much more quickly, especially when using a network license server.
· When a network license cannot be checked out, the error message now includes a list of users currently using the license.
·
A bug was fixed which would, in some
cases, cause CONTOUR to display “solution out of date”
when in fact the solution was not out
of date. (KB587)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when using Modify Objects to move one point onto another point, if the mesh between the two points contained boundary conditions.
· A bug was fixed which could cause contour lines to display incorrectly when large areas of the mesh were all the same value.
· Previously if you double-clicked a .gsz file on a CD to open it in GeoStudio, GeoStudio would crash. Now GeoStudio will display a message indicating it cannot open the file. In a future release we will fix this bug properly to actually allow the file to be opened. In the meantime, to open a file that is on a CD, run GeoStudio and choose File Open. To open a file on a hard drive you can double-click it or use File Open, as expected.
· A bug was fixed which could generate strange meshes in certain cases.
· A bug was fixed which would freeze the entire computer for seconds or even minutes at a time when zoomed way in on a thick dashed line such as a piezometric line or a contour line.
· Fixed a problem that could cause temporary system slowdowns for as long as a second or two every few minutes when using a Sentinel hardware key.
· SLOPE/W now has improved handling for error codes (E9xx) that occur when SOLVE cannot compute a factor of safety for a slip surface. Some new error codes have been added, and a few incorrectly assigned error codes have been fixed. In addition, CONTOUR now displays slip surfaces for many of the error conditions, allowing you to see why the error condition may have occurred.
·
When using the KeyIn PWP Ru Coefficient dialog box, material properties could
become corrupted when typing in a new material number and
then pressing the Copy button. This problem did not occur when selecting a
new material with the mouse. The corrupted material was evidenced most
often by a change in the region color. (KB652)
· Verify will now report an error for discontinuous ground surface lines, such as with overhanging cliffs.
· A bug was fixed in the anisotropic modifier for Left to Right problems.
· A bug was fixed in the horizontal seismic force moment arm values written to the .FRC file. This value is never used in CONTOUR.
· Previously Verify would sort all the points, but in cases with vertical line segments this would sometimes result in invalid point order. Points are no longer sorted, but will be reversed if a line is defined in the wrong order.
· A bug was fixed which would cause strange display problems while drawing if a line undercut itself.
· Fixed a few invalid links in the online help.
· Previously the SOLVE window would sometimes display an E9xx error code and other times a “No Solution” message when no valid FOS could be computed. Now it always displays “No Solution”.
· A bug was fixed in the Draw Reinforcement dialog, where the Applied Load was not being updated for dowels. The data was correct, only the display was wrong.
· A bug was fixed in KeyIn Material Properties which would ignore changes if you hit Enter after changing a value instead of clicking Copy with your mouse.
· When drawing the slip surface grid, you must click the corners of the grid in a particular order. Previously if you clicked them in the wrong order the grid would look strange. Now you’ll get a message explaining the order required.
· A bug was fixed in Draw Reinforcement Loads which could incorrectly display the error message “Bond Length cannot exceed Total Length.”
· Corrected the units displayed in the graph for Modifier Functions.
· Fixed an issue with the File Export command. When exporting as a DXF file, boundary conditions were not getting exported if nodes were turned off.
· A bug was fixed in CONTOUR which would cause it to zoom way out for problems created at very high (or very far negative) x or y values with flux sections but no flux labels.
· Corrected the units for Moment of Inertia in the Structural Beam properties.
· A bug was fixed which used constant stiffness instead of the stiffness function if both were specified.
· A bug was fixed related to modifying the duration in earthquake records.
· The Draw Graph commmand now plots the G Modulus rather than the E Modulus.
· Draw Spectral Response no longer shows circular frequency; the frequency is now 1/time, which matches the graph title.
· Corrected the units for Moment of Inertia in the Structural Beam properties.
· A bug was fixed in CONTOUR which would cause it to zoom way out for problems created at very high (or very far negative) x or y values with flux sections but no flux labels.
· A bug was fixed in CONTOUR which would cause it to zoom way out for problems created at very high (or very far negative) x or y values with flux sections but no flux labels.
· Modified how actual transpiration is applied at the top two nodes. Now it is less sensitive to a cover with only a few nodes. In the past if the user did not use lots of nodes, depending on their root depth, there may not have been balance between potential uptake and actual uptake of root water.
·
Bug fix to oxygen diffusion coefficient
calculation. Previous results would have
used a diffusion coefficient that was too low by a value equal to the actual
value multiplied by the air content. (KB659)
· A bug was fixed in CONTOUR which would cause it to zoom way out for problems created at very high (or very far negative) x or y values with flux sections but no flux labels.
· A bug was fixed where the mesh was not regenerated when changing the number of elements on a surface layer.
· A bug was fixed which could cause an incorrect factor of safety to be computed when using line loads under certain specific circumstances.
· A bug was fixed which could give slightly different Factors of Safety when using the GLE method, depending on the order that lambda values were entered.
· GeoStudio will now notify you on the Start Page if a new license file is available. (KB644)
· Tools Verify will now generate an error for axisymmetric analyses when nodes have negative x values.
· A bug was fixed in Modify Objects which caused regions, once selected, to always appear in a selected state.
· When Modify Objects is used to change a region containing a tunnel mesh pattern, the tunnel center is now updated correctly. (KB642)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when opening a SLOPE/W problem that uses QUAKE/W dynamic stresses in certain situations. (KB643)
· A bug was fixed which would incorrectly re-order points in a Piezometric Line with vertical segments.
· A bug was fixed in the slice weight calculation in cases with tail water. A smaller FOS may be obtained when the problem has a high datum, tail water and a high seismic coefficient.
· A bug was fixed in the consideration of Ua when Phi-b is non-zero.
· A bug was fixed in checking the validity of Entry/Exit slip surfaces.
· Logic was improved in checking for minimum slice thickness to avoid processing very thin slices.
· A bug was fixed which prevented a unit flux boundary condition from being applied on a plan view analysis.
· A bug was fixed that caused truss forces to be ignored in a Stop-Restart analysis.
· A bug was fixed which could cause CONTOUR to crash when plotting a Sum vs Average in certain cases.
· When using a network license server, GeoStudio now starts up more quickly.
· A bug was fixed which would cause GeoStudio to crash in Draw Element Properties after importing a file created with a version 5 product. (KB632)
· A bug was fixed which caused GeoStudio to crash when printing to a file. (KB629)
· A bug was fixed in CONTOUR which could cause graphs to display a straight line when all its values were close to zero. (KB628)
· A bug was fixed which could cause invalid target and ratio values to be assigned to region lines when a point is added to an existing line. (KB639)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash on startup on a Tablet PC. (KB641)
· A bug was fixed which caused the material description and color to be reset when changing the material model.
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when using the Insert Point option in the Draw Tension Crack Line dialog box. (KB636)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when drawing piezometric lines with more than 100 points.
· A bug was fixed which would cause SLOPE/W CONTOUR to crash when opening a file with a block-specified slip surface with only one point for each block. (KB630)
· A bug was fixed which could cause SLOPE/W to crash when exporting a DXF. (KB631)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when generating flow paths in SEEP/W CONTOUR under particular circumstances.
· A bug was fixed in the Draw Function dialog box which could prevent you from adding points to a function after deleting some.
· A bug was fixed in calculations related to q flux on surface regions.
· A bug was fixed which could cause SEEP/W to crash when using Consolidation with a Water Content Function with no data points, only Mv.
· A bug was fixed which caused memory to not be released when solving a consolidation analysis and in certain other cases, potentially using up all available memory. (KB635)
· A bug was fixed which caused SIGMA/W SOLVE to crash when using excavation elements in an uncoupled consolidation. (KB633)
· Coupled and uncoupled consolidation now support truss elements. (KB640)
· A bug was fixed which caused memory to not be released when solving a consolidation analysis and in certain other cases, potentially using up all available memory. (KB635)
· Improved spectral response simulation method.
· A bug was fixed using stiffness as a function.
· A bug was fixed which caused GeoStudio to shut down unexpectedly when choosing KeyIn Analysis Settings in QUAKE/W on Windows 2000. (KB637)
· A bug was fixed in Draw Spectral Analysis and Draw Node History Plot, where changing certain parameters would not affect the plot.
· A bug was fixed that forced you to have a SEEP/W license to open a CTRAN/W analysis.
· A bug was fixed in the calculation of surface region interlayer flux.
· A bug was fixed which caused memory to not be released when solving a consolidation analysis and in certain other cases, potentially using up all available memory. (KB635)
· A bug was fixed which would cause GeoStudio to crash if you chose KeyIn Regions when no regions existed. (KB620)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash under certain circumstances when using Undo while a dialog box was open. (KB623)
· A bug was fixed which would cause GeoStudio to crash when inserting a field in Sketch Text for a missing value. (KB621)
· A bug was fixed which would cause GeoStudio to crash opening a file that was saved with a fully specified slip surface line with no points. (KB622)
· SLOPE/W no longer imposes a limit to the number of slices on a slip surface.
· A bug was fixed in the Fredlund-Xing function estimation which would give higher K values at higher suctions when using a VWC function saved in Log Suction view.
· A bug was fixed which would occasionally cause SIGMA/W SOLVE to crash while writing initial conditions in a load deformation analysis.
· A change was made to how the oxygen diffusion coefficient is computed in partially frozen ground. The ice content is considered part of the soil solids and the porosity is modified.
· Previously some license preferences were stored in a user-specific section of the Registry, which meant these settings were lost if the computer was re-imaged, as some university labs do. Now the settings are retained across re-imaging. (KB615)
· A bug was fixed which could cause a crash using KeyIn Points. (KB618)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash if the system it was running on was set up with a profile that disallowed saving recent document histories. (KB606)
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when displaying region properties after editing the region’s points. (KB607)
· A bug was fixed which caused the wrong FOS contours to be displayed if you changed the method using the toolbar. (KB614)
· A bug was fixed which underlined too many FOS values for analyses with multiple slip surfaces displayed. (KB616)
· A bug was fixed which could cause the Safety Map to not be displayed. (KB617)
· A label on the Volumetric Water Content Function in SEEP/W was changed to m3/m3 instead of m/sec. (KB612)
· A bug was fixed in K function estimation when a Volumetric Water Content data point was at zero. (KB10)
· A bug was fixed which caused the solver to use the wrong Phi-b values in some cases. (KB608)
· QUAKE/W now enforces the rule that dynamic analyses cannot use external PWP data as input. (KB613)
· A bug was fixed which prevented CTRAN/W from opening 2-point diffusion functions.
· A bug was fixed which caused snow melting to occur early. (KB609)
· A bug was fixed in K function estimation when a Volumetric Water Content data point was at zero. (KB610)
·
Sketch Text Improvements:
· The Material List button has been replaced with a Materials Tab like in SLOPE/W version 5. This allows you to display a list of material properties defined for the current analysis (in all products, not just SLOPE/W). While it was previously possible to create this list by inserting each field manually into the list, the Materials tab makes it much quicker. You can still insert any field as dynamic text using the Advanced tab.
· The Sketch Text command now supports international (Unicode) characters when running under Windows 2000 or XP. This allows you to label your drawings using languages that have non-Latin alphabets, such as Chinese, Korean, Arabic, or Hebrew. (KB584)
·
Region and Meshing Improvements:
· If a change to a region causes the mesh to be regenerated, GeoStudio now checks for user changes to mesh element properties (such as those made with Draw Element Properties or Draw Infinite Elements) and displays a warning before re-meshing. Re-meshing will cause any custom mesh properties to be reset and reapplied from the region mesh properties. (KB592)
· A number of fixes have been made to prevent crashes or strange behavior that could that occur while manipulating regions. (KB593)
· When the mesh is changed in a region, the boundary conditions are read and then re-applied. GeoStudio attempts to reapply boundary conditions to the changed mesh over the same geometry that the boundary conditions existed previously. This feature has been enhanced in version 6.11 to handle a larger number of cases. (KB592)
· Fixed a problem with region mesh compatibility when using the Opening 4 and Opening n mesh patterns. GeoStudio would generate duplicate nodes with the same x, y coordinates, but a different z coordinate. (KB594)
· Region meshing is now improved when a new point is added to a region edge. This change is only noticeable when a ratio is applied to a region edge, as GeoStudio now attempts to calculate the meshing ratio by interpolating the ratio from the previous region edge. This allows points to be added or removed without completely changing the mesh discretization.
· GeoStudio is now faster when manipulating regions with many points and modifying regions that contain large meshes.
· When calculating the actual mesh subdivision on region edges from the minimum subdivisions, GeoStudio would not always given consistent results. GeoStudio always tries to re-balance region sides (between corner points) so opposite sides have the same number of subdivisions. Previously the re-balancing did not always occur - it depended upon the order in which region edges were drawn.
· If a mesh cannot be generated in a region, an error is now reported and the mesh is removed from the region.
· When changing region points using KeyIn Regions, region collision testing is no longer performed every time you change a region point.
·
Improvements in Opening Version 5 Data Files:
· When reading a version 5 file into GeoStudio version 6.10, the sketch axis was lost. This is fixed in version 6.11. (KB595)
· Fixed a problem that could cause GeoStudio to crash after importing a version 5 data file. The crash only occurred if the version 5 data file had references to other version 5 files (e.g., for initial conditions), and there was an error in merging several version 5 data files together. A typical merge error is due to a mismatch in the number of materials defined in each file. (KB597)
· Fixed a problem where, after successfully importing a version 5 data file with multiple analyses, GeoStudio version 6.10 would not prompt you to save the file when you chose the File Open command. Instead, a licensing error was displayed that did not apply. (KB598)
· The default number of region subdivisions has been improved when regions are drawn over version 5 meshes.
· You can now pan (scroll) across the drawing by clicking and dragging the middle mouse button (i.e., the mouse wheel). Also, performance has been improved when you roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
· Fixed a problem when running under Windows 98 and Windows 2000 where GeoStudio would stop running after being in use for some time. (KB588)
· Fixed a problem when running under Windows 98 and Windows 2000 where drop-down list boxes were displayed as extremely short lists.
· When specifying a file name to save your problem, GeoStudio now displays an error if the file name uses unsupported international (i.e., Unicode) characters. (KB590)
· CONTOUR sometimes displayed a “Solution out of date” message in the title bar, even if the solution did not need to be re-analyzed. This problem has been fixed. (KB563, KB587)
· When you click on the SOLVE button, GeoStudio now prompts you to save the file, rather than automatically saving it. This allows you to save the problem as a different file name before solving it.
· GeoStudio now displays an asterisk (*) in the window title bar next to the file name if the file needs to be saved.
· Fixed a bug where version 6.10 would not allow you to draw a region after you deleted all nodes using the KeyIn Nodes command.
· Improved the speed of the Verify command for problems with many regions.
· DEFINE now runs faster due to improvements in the Undo feature.
· DXF Export now puts regions on separate layers. Line styles have also been added where necessary.
· Fixed a bug where a file could not be opened if its initial conditions came from a file with a ‘&’ character in the filename. (KB565)
· Fixed a problem where GeoStudio could become disabled after an error message was displayed if you clicked on the dialog box, rather than clicking OK on the error message. (KB561)
· Fixed a bug where choosing the File Close command and selecting Cancel could cause a licensing error to occur.
· Fixed a bug in KeyIn Points where the last selected point wasn’t copied to the Clipboard.
· When using the Zoom In tool while in the CONTOUR Draw Graph command, graph nodes would inadvertently become selected within the zoom region. This has been fixed.
· Fixed a problem where turning off the contour shading in the View Preferences toolbar did not always work.
· Fixed a problem where solving a problem, then selecting Undo, and then re-solving the problem would not save the data file before solving.
· Fixed a bug where clicking F1 in a few dialog boxes did not bring up the correct online help topic.
· Fixed a bug in version 6.10 that could cause SLOPE/W CONTOUR to crash after re-solving a problem and viewing the updated results in CONTOUR. (KB585)
· Verify now sorts points in SLOPE/W lines so that they are defined from left to right. This affects piezometric lines, pressure lines, the tension crack line, and fully specified slip surfaces.
· Fixed a bug that caused SLOPE/W CONTOUR to crash when you selected View Safety Map in View Preferences without first choosing Draw Safety Map. (KB600)
· Fixed a bug that caused the safety map to not always be displayed after zooming in by a large amount.
· Fixed a bug where the ground surface line may not have been displayed properly in DEFINE when switching between multiple analyses in CONTOUR.
·
Slip Surface Optimization Improvements:
· Improved slip surface optimization process for probabilistic analyses when line loads, piezometric lines, Ru coefficients, or B-bar parameters are used.
· Fixed a bug where the slip surface optimization would fail if it encountered a highly irregular bedrock layer. (KB583)
· Fixed a bug that could cause SOLVE to crash when computing runoff along an extremely irregular ground surface. (KB596)
· Improved the conductivity function estimation process to better estimate the shape of the function near the air entry value.
· Fixed a bug in version 6.10 where the Copy button did not work in the KeyIn Material Properties command if you had chosen a Consolidation analysis. (KB582)
· Fixed a bug where the View Node Information command in CONTOUR would should undefined values for normal and tangential stress. (KB601)
· Fixed a bug in View Element Information where clicking on a slip element command showed the tangential and normal stress input values beside the wrong headings.
· Fixed a bug in Draw Structural Beam where clicking New and then Cancel would still create a beam; now, clicking Cancel will remove the newly created beam.
· Fixed a bug that could cause SOLVE to crash when computing runoff along an extremely irregular ground surface. (KB596)
· Fixed a bug when using imperial units with climate data and ground freezing, where the ground temperature was not computed correctly the first time snow appeared on the ground. (KB599)
· Fixed a bug where opening a problem while the VADOSE/W SOLVE window was already open could display an error message indicating that SIGMA/W SOLVE could not be found. (KB580)
· Improved the conductivity function estimation process to better estimate the shape of the function near the air entry value.
· Basic Edition: GeoStudio 2004 is now available in a Basic Edition that includes limited feature versions of six products for one low price. A list of the features in GeoStudio 2004 Basic Edition is available at www.geo-slope.com. Upgrade pricing from the SLOPE/W Basic Edition is available.
· Units: GeoStudio now directly supports specific units for time, force, energy, temperature and mass. The Set Scale command is now called Set Units and Scale, and you can choose between Metric and Imperial sets of units. The units that you select are displayed next to parameters in the KeyIn Functions and View Information commands. You can also see the units in CONTOUR when you draw a graph or use the View Information commands. Note that unit conversion is not performed when you switch between different kinds of units - the units are displayed as a reminder only.
· DXF Improvements: This version of GeoStudio 2004 contains a number of enhancements around the DXF format, making it easier to integrate with AutoCAD and other applications that use the DXF format.
DXF Import:
o Previously a dxf file could be imported as a “picture”, used as a guide to draw your regions. Now you can automatically convert dxf polylines into regions. See the online help under File Import for details.
o GeoStudio now supports dxf formats up to AutoCAD 2004.
DXF Export:
o Point labels exported to dxf will now be displayed the same way they are within GeoStudio.
o Entry and exit zones exported to dxf will now be displayed the same way they are within GeoStudio. (SLOPE/W)
o Added dxf support for bar (truss) structural elements. (SIGMA/W)
· Improvements to Regions and Meshing: A number of bugs were fixed and improvements made to the way regions and meshes are handled.
o Improved ability to retain mesh information when remeshing a region. Among other improvements, beams and bars that are defined within the region will be applied to the new mesh; previously, beams and bars were lost whenever the region was remeshed. There were also some cases in plan view or with secondary nodes where boundary conditions were lost after remeshing.
o You can now define regions that have fill/excavation elements (in SIGMA/W) or infinite elements. This allows you to change the region mesh and regenerate the fill/excavation elements or infinite elements automatically.
o Whenever the Region Property Sheet is displayed, you can now click on another region to immediately see its properties, without having to click the Close button first.
o The Region Property sheet has also been reorganized to make it easier to use. For example, the material description is shown along with the material number, making it easier to select the appropriate material, and the mesh properties have been grouped together on a new Mesh tab. The online help includes more discussion on specifying the region properties.
o Meshing performance has been improved.
o When you create or modify a region, GeoStudio now warns you if the region overlaps another region. Previously it would not allow the region to be created. Now you can still define the region, but Tools Verify will warn you again if you do not resolve the overlapping regions later.
o Several problems have been resolved where GeoStudio would sometimes delete unused points. For example, if a region you are drawing cannot be created because it’s invalid, the underlying region points are no longer deleted if they existed prior to the region creation. This allows you to use the same points to redraw the region.
o The region geometry and mesh are no longer compacted when the file is saved. Compacting saves disk space and allows SOLVE to run more efficiently, but it also renumbers nodes and points so it can be annoying. Now compaction is done only when the problem is verified (using Tools Verify or when solving).
o A bug was fixed which caused truss elements to be lost in an Undo or Redo operation.
o A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to stop responding when two regions were drawn overtop of each other.
o A bug has been fixed which could cause GeoStudio to run extremely slowly after deleting everything in KeyIn Points.
o A bug was fixed which prevented pasting data into the KeyIn Regions point list.
o If the geometry (regions etc) grows outside the page extents, the page size is enlarged.
o Fixed a bug which caused an error message to appear saying a region could not be meshed when in fact it was meshed.
o When an error is displayed (such as in Verify or KeyIn Regions) about two regions colliding, the error message is now more descriptive, identifying the offending regions.
o Fixed a bug which caused errors while sorting if secondary nodes were deleted using Modify Objects.
o Fixed a bug which could generate a corrupt mesh after moving a region with Modify Objects. (KB550)
o Fixed a bug which could cause GeoStudio to crash after adding nodes with KeyIn Node. (KB549)
o Fixed a bug which could cause GeoStudio to crash when dragging one region overtop of another in Modify Objects. (KB542)
o Improved surface region generation when the region beneath is modified. (KB547, KB541)
· Coordinate Tooltips: GeoStudio can now display the coordinates of your mouse pointer as a tooltip that moves with the mouse. This option can be enabled or disabled through Tools Options or using a button in the toolbar.
·
Performance
Improvements: The speed of some
operations has been improved:
o Files are opened more quickly.
o The mesh is generated more quickly.
o
The SLOPE/W safety map is generated more
quickly.
·
Sketch
Text Changes: Several important bugs
were fixed with dynamic sketch text:
o Sketch Text has a
button intended to create a Material List table showing a few pertinent fields
for each material. Unfortunately this feature did not work properly for
most products, often displaying only the material number or name. It has
been fixed to show all the fields it was intended to. (KB538)
o Increased
the size of the drop list on the combo boxes in the Field Chooser dialog. On some systems the field chooser was nearly
impossible to use because only a single item was displayed at a time in the
field lists.
o In
SLOPE/W, the factor of safety displayed using sketch text now uses the number
of significant figures selected in View Preferences. (KB539)
·
Changes
to the Start Page: The Start Page
has been changed slightly. A new "Where do I start" link takes new
users to an appropriate topic in the online help; the PDFs open in Adobe Reader
instead of a web browser; and the Licensing section has been moved to the
left to make room for the Updates section and the new News section on the
right. The News section displays a
message from the GEO-SLOPE web site with information that should be of interest
to GeoStudio 2004 users. The News option
can be disabled if necessary through Tools Options.
·
Updated
Examples: The examples that ship
with GeoStudio 2004 have all been updated.
They have been cleaned up and changed to support the latest
features. The function database file has
been split into one database file for each product to make it possible for you
to open it and add your own functions without needing a Universal license. On the web site, the examples have also been
split into separate packages for each product to minimize the size of
downloads. The updated examples are not included in the service packs; we
recommend you download and install them from the web site.
· The View Information commands now display Function descriptions as well as the function number. This makes it easier to identify the associated function.
· KeyIn Functions now displays a list of all functions including their descriptions.
· Previously it was impossible to scroll or zoom while in most drawing modes (such as Draw Regions). This has been fixed. Now you can scroll using the scrollbars or arrow keys, and zoom using the mouse wheel or the zoom controls in the toolbars. (KB556)
· When zooming using the mouse wheel, the zoom will now happen around the mouse pointer rather than the center of the screen.
· The Unit Weight of Water used to be defined separately for each analysis. This could potentially create problems by allowing the Unit Weight of Water to have a different value in a SEEP/W analysis, for example, than in a SLOPE/W analysis. Now, when you change the Unit Weight of Water, it is changed for all analyses in your project. This change has also been made for Atmospheric Pressure (SIGMA/W & QUAKE/W), Latent Heat (TEMP/W & VADOSE/W), and Phase Change Temperature (TEMP/W & VADOSE/W).
· Undo no longer undoes adding or removing an analysis.
· Previously if an MRU file failed to open for any reason it was removed from the MRU list. Now it's only removed if the file does not exist.
· Improved support for systems with multiple monitors.
· A bug was fixed which prevented GeoStudio 2004 from running under a restricted user account.
· A bug was fixed which could cause the mouse to "flicker" on slower computers.
· GeoStudio would sometimes crash in Student mode if you opened a non-Student data file. This has been fixed.
· A bug was fixed which could cause GeoStudio to crash when printing to some printers from Windows 98. (KB546)
· A bug was fixed which prevented toolbars from being closed, caused them to reappear the next time GeoStudio was run, or caused them to be hidden when they should have been shown.
· A checkbox was added to the Draw Contours dialog box to turn contour shading on or off.
· GeoStudio was not consistently saving the current CONTOUR settings for a problem. This has been fixed.
· In some instances, CONTOUR would not display the axes. This has been fixed.
· In some instances, the axes in CONTOUR could not be edited with Modify Objects. This has been fixed. (KB552)
· When viewing a problem at an extremely high zoom factor, the Draw Contour Labels command sometimes didn't let you click on a contour line. This has been fixed.
· A bug has been fixed which could cause CONTOUR graphs to display data for the wrong time step. (KB545)
· Previously CONTOUR would display “Solution out of date” in the title bar if the file was saved after SOLVE had run. Now it displays that message if the data in DEFINE has changed since SOLVE was last run. That means if the file is saved but no important changes were made (only sketch item changes for example) the “Solution out of date” message will not appear. And if you make an important change in DEFINE, the message will be displayed even if you have not yet saved the file. (KB551)
· Previously if the number of iterations was set to 1, SOLVE would always display an error that the “maximum number of iterations was reached – solution may not converge.” Now that error is only displayed if the number of iterations is set to something other than 1.
· A bug was fixed which could cause a function to change if the “View Log Suction” checkbox was checked and then unchecked.
· A bug was fixed which would sometimes cause the title bar to say “DEFINE” when it should say “CONTOUR”.
· Previously if you had multiple analyses in the same gsz file, you solved all of them, then you deleted one of the analyses, the results data from that analysis would still be in the file, making it unnecessarily large. Now when you save a file, results from analyses that no longer exist are purged.
· The Axes are now shared between DEFINE and CONTOUR—if you change their shape or position in DEFINE they’ll change in CONTOUR as well, and vice versa. The font size used for the axes however is not shared, so you can have different font sizes in DEFINE and CONTOUR.
· A bug was fixed which made it impossible to open offline files. (KB523)
· New Reinforcement Option: SLOPE/W now includes a new option for reinforcement. The reinforcement load can either be concentrated within one slice at the slip surface intersection point, or it can be distributed evenly along the embedded portion of the reinforcement.
· Performance of the safety map has been much improved; it is generated and displayed more quickly.
· Added a “none” material type, which is the default.
· The View Material Information command now displays the piezometric line number, if available.
· CONTOUR now displays piezometric lines with an adjusted height in the same way as DEFINE.
· The Seismic Load default values were sometimes set to invalid numbers. This has been fixed.
· If you turned off the Points display while in Modify Objects, you could not select piezometric lines, pressure lines, or reinforcement lines. This has been fixed.
· Deleting a reinforcement line using Modify Objects sometimes caused other reinforcement lines to not be selectable. This has been fixed.
· A bug was fixed which could cause SOLVE to crash if it was run with a very long command line, such as a deeply nested file.
· The factor of safety displayed using sketch text now uses the number of significant figures selected in View Preferences. (KB539)
· A bug was fixed which would cause GeoStudio to crash if you opened a file that contained piezometric lines through regions which had been deleted.
· A bug was fixed where slip surfaces with no solution didn’t show up when the automatic tension crack location option was selected.
· A bug was fixed which prevented points from being displayed as they were being inserted into a piezometric line.
· A bug was fixed which prevented the seismic load coefficients from being saved under certain conditions. (KB540)
· A bug was fixed which prevented the unit weight of no-strength materials from being saved.
· Entry and exit zones exported to dxf will now be displayed the same way they are within GeoStudio.
· A bug was fixed which prevented probabilistic or sensitivity parameters from being saved when the “FOS Distribution” is set to “Constant” in KeyIn Analysis Settings.
· A bug was fixed which caused the C-Maximum edit box to be blank initially in KeyIn Material Properties if you select S=fn(depth) or S=fn(datum) as the soil model.
· A bug was fixed which made slip surface optimization unsuccessful when doing a finite element stability analysis.
· A bug was fixed which gave the wrong factor of safety vs lambda plot on the optimized slip surface when using the GLE method.
· A bug was fixed in SOLVE which applied the Unit Gradient BC incorrectly for a transient analysis. Previously it was only being applied on the first iteration.
· Deleting a bar element in Modify Objects would sometimes cause SIGMA/W to crash. This problem has been fixed.
· The Draw Graph command didn't let you set the graph options correctly. This has been fixed.
· When you opened a SIGMA/W version 5 file and then changed the Cohesion value for Material 1, the Cohesion value was changed for all materials. This has been fixed.
· If you opened a SIGMA/W version 5 consolidation analysis that had an invalid problem definition, GeoStudio would crash. Now, an error message is displayed instead.
· Fixed a bug which prevented SOLVE from exiting automatically when launched with /x and when the initial condition file was missing.
· H-modulus can no longer be entered; it’s computed by the solver.
· Added dxf support for bar (truss) structural elements.
· A bug was fixed which caused problems opening files containing deleted functions. (KB524)
· A bug was fixed which computed incorrect forces using a fluid elevation vs time function. (KB522)
· The Draw Graph command didn't let you set the graph options correctly. This has been fixed.
· If you changed your units from meters to feet, the "g" gravitational constant value wasn't being changed. This has been fixed. (KB543)
· Fixed a bug which prevented SOLVE from exiting automatically when launched with /x and when the initial condition file was missing.
· TEMP/W 2004 Student Edition no longer supports function estimation.
· Modified how thermal conductivity in frozen ground is computed. Now it varies linearly between the value at the time of freezing to the maximum frozen value based on a percentage of ice content relative to water content at the time of freezing.
· A bug was fixed which prevented the soil mineral specific heat from being saved.
· A bug was fixed which could cause SOLVE to crash when solving problems that involved modifier functions.
· The Z coordinate is no longer displayed in View Node Information, as it has no value in VADOSE/W.
· A bug was fixed which caused too much latent heat to be applied at the frost front when using imperial units. (KB544)
· A bug was fixed in Draw Boundary Conditions which would cause the Thermal Action and the Gas Action to be reset to 0.0 every time you changed the Thermal Type or Gas Type.
· A bug was fixed in SOLVE which applied the Unit Gradient BC incorrectly for a transient analysis. Previously it was only being applied on the first iteration.
· Improved SOLVE performance for all Finite Element solvers (all solvers other than SLOPE/W).
· Fixed a bug when in Contour, choosing Save As and selecting "GeoStudio Compressed Excluding Solution (*.gsz)" from the Save as type. (KB534)
· Piezometric lines are now printed as dashed lines.
· Generating a mesh can sometimes take a long time. Now the hourglass cursor is displayed while generating a mesh.
· When Tools Verify is run, the geometry is compacted as well (duplicate nodes removed, sorted, etc.) Previously the geometry was only compacted when the file was saved.
· Region numbers are now properly exported to DXF.
· A bug was fixed which caused point coordinates to appear to be very slightly off the grid even when Snap to Grid was turned on. (KB531)
· When opening a file created by a version 4 product, saving as a .gsz, then trying to view in CONTOUR mode, some errors may be generated because the file format has changed since version 4. Now we no longer save the results with the .gsz until the file has been re-solved by a version 6 (2004) solver. (KB533)
· A bug was fixed which would cause GeoStudio to lose its maximized state (revert to the "Restored" size) in some cases, especially when error messages were displayed.
· The default colors for the SOLVE graphs has been changed back to what it was in version 5, to make it easier to read.
· Fixed a bug which caused materials to be listed in the wrong order in the Region Properties when there were more than nine materials.
· Fixed a bug which could cause a solver to crash if it was launched from GeoStudio and GeoStudio was closed while the solver was still solving.
· Fixed a bug which caused problems when a file was opened that had a '.' in the name (other than the extension) or in its directory name. (KB529)
· Fixed two bugs related to importing sketch text from older files. (KB515, KB532)
· Fixed a bug which could cause GeoStudio to crash when adding a new point in KeyIn Points. (KB525)
· Fixed a bug which could cause the list of points to go blank in KeyIn Points when invalid data is entered. (KB526)
· Fixed a bug which would cause the point number field to disappear when deleting multiple points. (KB527)
· Fixed a bug in KeyIn Points which would cause new points to be lost if they were added between existing points. For example, if points 1 and 3 existed and you added point 2, it would be lost when you hit OK. (KB528)
· Added an Apply button to the KeyIn Points dialog box.
· Changed the checkout order for network licenses. Now GeoStudio will first look for a package license (Standard, Professional or Universal). If it cannot find one, it will look for a product license.
· Fixed a bug which could cause multiple error messages to be displayed (sometimes so many that you can’t exit GeoStudio) for invalid input in some dialog boxes, such as KeyIn Hydraulic Conductivity. (KB537)
· Fixed a bug in KeyIn Elements when adding infinite elements. Secondary nodes were not being created, and the infinite element symbols were not being drawn correctly.
· Fixed a bug which prevented pasting point numbers into KeyIn Regions.
· Fixed a bug in KeyIn Regions. If you enter an invalid point, the region is deleted. Now you get an error message about the point, without deleting the region.
· Fixed a bug which could cause the Copy button to not work in KeyIn Regions.
· Fixed a bug that prevented region colors from showing in SLOPE in some cases.
· Fixed a bug that distorted the piezometric line when exporting to DXF or WMF.
· SLOPE/W now supports surface bedrock.
· Fixed a bug in the checking for changes in slice base angles.
· Fixed a bug in selecting the color of a no-strength soil.
· Fixed a bug which would cause the graph window to be out of sync with the data when fitting a function with the Fredlund and Xing curve. (KB535)
· Fixed an unhelpful error message when creating a Fredlund and Xing Volumetric Water Content function.
· Fixed a bug which could cause GeoStudio to stop responding when using unrealistic parameters in a volumetric water content function estimation. (KB537)
· Fixed a bug in the solver graph when an analysis is stopped prematurely and no material file is found.
· Added an error message when a function estimation fails to converge.
· Fixed a bug in the Grain Size function which prevented the function from being deleted. (KB536)
· Fixed a bug which prevented the Liquid Limit from being saved when estimating Volumetric Water Content from grain size with the MK method.
· Fixed a bug which could result in a “choppy” K function estimation. (KB553)
· Fixed a bug which used incorrect unit gradient BC values, especially noticeable with an unstructured mesh. (KB554)
· Added unit labels for acceleration and velocity values for clarity.
· Fixed a bug with the Stress Boundary Functions (Acceleration and Velocity). When viewing the integrated functions, the titles were wrong the first time they were viewed.
· Thermosyphons can now use any climate data set. Previously they always used the first one.
· Fixed a bug which prevented climate boundary conditions from being removed.
· Added Undo support for deleting thermosyphons and convective surfaces.
· Fixed a bug which would cause the graph window to be out of sync with the data when fitting a function with the Fredlund and Xing curve. (KB535)
· Fixed an unhelpful error message when creating a Fredlund and Xing Volumetric Water Content function.
· Fixed a bug which could cause GeoStudio to stop responding when using unrealistic parameters in a volumetric water content function estimation. (KB537)
· Fixed a bug in the Grain Size function which prevented the function from being deleted. (KB536)
· Fixed a bug in the solver graph when an analysis is stopped prematurely and no material file is found.
· Fixed a bug which could result in a “choppy” K function estimation. (KB553)
· Fixed a bug which used incorrect unit gradient BC values, especially noticeable with an unstructured mesh. (KB554)
· Fixed a bug which would cause GeoStudio to always display a warning about renaming the contents of a .gsz file when the project name contains high ANSI characters (e.g. "é"). (KB517)
· Fixed a bug which would cause GeoStudio to crash under certain conditions when drawing a region over an existing mesh from a version 5 file. (KB518)
· Fixed a bug which would cause GeoStudio to crash when the computer’s time zone was set to a time zone ahead of GMT (east of GMT and west of the date line). (KB520)
· When opening a version 5 file with no SL2 file, GeoStudio would say that a Page and Scale would be generated, when in fact they were not. Now they are generated correctly. (KB519)
· Fixed a bug which would cause GeoStudio to display the "Create a CTRAN/W Analysis" link on the Start Page to be disabled when a local FLEXlm CTRAN/W license existed. (KB516)
GeoStudio 2004 version 6.00 is released.