Improvements in SoilModelEditor (SME)

SoilModelEditor is used to define or modify the soil structure in which a network to be analyzed is deployed. It can operate as a standalone tool or be called by other SES software applications.

Since the last UGC in 2025, major improvements have been implemented to enhance the visualization and validation of soil volumes. The following features highlight these enhancements.

A 3D viewer has been implemented to display user-defined volumes based on specified vertices. This feature provides clear visualization of the defined volumes and helps identify potential issues in the definition of soil volumes within the tool. By selecting a volume, the 3D viewer highlights and displays that specific volume individually. The viewer also includes several interactive tools to enhance usability, such as Rotate, Zoom Fit, Zoom Window, and other navigation controls.

Previously, errors in soil volume definitions were only detected and reported during model computation. With the new version of SME, issues in the soil volume definition can now be detected and reported directly within the tool, before returning control to the calling program and executing the computation. This enhancement helps prevent runtime errors and allows users to identify and correct problems in advance, improving the overall quality of the model prior to execution.

In addition, several other improvements have been made. The most important ones are listed below:

1. In HIFREQ mode, for the Vertical Soil model, both the relative permittivity and permeability of soil layers can now be defined, instead of using the default value of 1.
2. The Inclination Angle in Inclined Soil (MALZ mode) has been relocated for improved visibility and organization.

Soil volumes are now supported in the SESTransient application.