WinUbro dla platformy .NET—nowe możliwości
Abstract
WinUbro for the .NET framework — new capabilities
A b s t r a c t . The algorithm of computer model of the cavern leaching process in salt deposits – UBRO was developed up in Chemkop during the eighties and at present its implementation WinUbro for the WINDOWS operating system, became the undisputable world leader in the leaching simulation software. Apart from few exceptions, all major companies dealing with the salt cavern development are nowadays using this program (among others: Solvay, Akzo Nobel, Dow Chemicals, E.on Ruhrgas, DEEP, Petrochina, Geostock). The license for using WinUbro was purchased by ca. 25 companies from 11 countries to design new caverns and for monitoring development of caverns already in leaching. tModel algorithm authors are Andrzej Kunstman and Kazimierz Urbańczyk, the main author of the implementation in C++ language is Paweł Kunstman. Thanks to the feedback from the users, the authors can constantly develop the program, which algorithm after thirteen years of the extensive software usage can now deal with more and more unexpected data configurations of new variants of the leaching technology. However, all new released program versions were still based on the Windows C++ implementation, already 13 years old. The progress in computers is unusually fast. Following new equipment possibilities, a new software appears, effectively exploiting these abilities. Software companies, especially Microsoft, each two, three years are releasing new operating systems without sufficient care of its compatibility with the previous systems and with no guaranty that older software will properly operate under the new system. So, to preventWinUbro from becoming obsolete and to allow it serving its users for long time and finding new customers, a new implementation for the newer operating system was necessary. NET platform was chosen for the purpose and C# as a source language. It was necessary to write a new user interface (with use of the other system functions than previously), for support of the dialogs windows and for the use of the new dynamic graphical libraries. Nearly the whole source code, counting over 40 thousands instructions has been written anew from the scratch. The author of this new implementation, called WinUbroNet is Rafał Kunstman. The new user interface opened new, wider graphical capabilities, the best demonstrated on the example of 3D graphics, where it is possible now to display shape by shape, a sequence of cavern shapes after successive leaching stages. The user can in this manner observe the time development of the cavern shape. There is also a possibility to change quickly the point of the cavern viewing, to direct and move towards the cavern, to watch it from different sides, rotate it etc. Next, on 2D cavern sections, it is now possible to observe the increase of the cavern size during the simulation of a leaching stage. When the previous implementation of WinUbro was developed, a floppy disk of 1.2 MB was a standard external carrier of computer data, limiting size of program files. It concerned especially the files saving model states. Only one (current) cavern shape could be stored in such model saving file. These limitations do not exist anymore, with several GB pen-drive in use, allowing to store a sequence of many cavern shapes in the model files. Such memory volume enables the program to save in any moment a simulation of the whole cavern development history and to retrieve it after simulation restart. WinUbroNet can operate both under each Vista system, and under the XP systems. It will provide for the UBRO model many future years of the dominance in the world market of leaching software
A b s t r a c t . The algorithm of computer model of the cavern leaching process in salt deposits – UBRO was developed up in Chemkop during the eighties and at present its implementation WinUbro for the WINDOWS operating system, became the undisputable world leader in the leaching simulation software. Apart from few exceptions, all major companies dealing with the salt cavern development are nowadays using this program (among others: Solvay, Akzo Nobel, Dow Chemicals, E.on Ruhrgas, DEEP, Petrochina, Geostock). The license for using WinUbro was purchased by ca. 25 companies from 11 countries to design new caverns and for monitoring development of caverns already in leaching. tModel algorithm authors are Andrzej Kunstman and Kazimierz Urbańczyk, the main author of the implementation in C++ language is Paweł Kunstman. Thanks to the feedback from the users, the authors can constantly develop the program, which algorithm after thirteen years of the extensive software usage can now deal with more and more unexpected data configurations of new variants of the leaching technology. However, all new released program versions were still based on the Windows C++ implementation, already 13 years old. The progress in computers is unusually fast. Following new equipment possibilities, a new software appears, effectively exploiting these abilities. Software companies, especially Microsoft, each two, three years are releasing new operating systems without sufficient care of its compatibility with the previous systems and with no guaranty that older software will properly operate under the new system. So, to preventWinUbro from becoming obsolete and to allow it serving its users for long time and finding new customers, a new implementation for the newer operating system was necessary. NET platform was chosen for the purpose and C# as a source language. It was necessary to write a new user interface (with use of the other system functions than previously), for support of the dialogs windows and for the use of the new dynamic graphical libraries. Nearly the whole source code, counting over 40 thousands instructions has been written anew from the scratch. The author of this new implementation, called WinUbroNet is Rafał Kunstman. The new user interface opened new, wider graphical capabilities, the best demonstrated on the example of 3D graphics, where it is possible now to display shape by shape, a sequence of cavern shapes after successive leaching stages. The user can in this manner observe the time development of the cavern shape. There is also a possibility to change quickly the point of the cavern viewing, to direct and move towards the cavern, to watch it from different sides, rotate it etc. Next, on 2D cavern sections, it is now possible to observe the increase of the cavern size during the simulation of a leaching stage. When the previous implementation of WinUbro was developed, a floppy disk of 1.2 MB was a standard external carrier of computer data, limiting size of program files. It concerned especially the files saving model states. Only one (current) cavern shape could be stored in such model saving file. These limitations do not exist anymore, with several GB pen-drive in use, allowing to store a sequence of many cavern shapes in the model files. Such memory volume enables the program to save in any moment a simulation of the whole cavern development history and to retrieve it after simulation restart. WinUbroNet can operate both under each Vista system, and under the XP systems. It will provide for the UBRO model many future years of the dominance in the world market of leaching software