Changelog

Status

75% complete – target release Q3 2025

• Following tracker manufacturer documentation, and using neighbor-seeking logic, row-type determination will occur for interior, edge, and exterior row types.
• Proof-of-concept coding has shown that wind loading calculations for exterior row types is viable. Implementation is proceeding well with additional refinements to edge detection algorithms.

Status

15% complete – target release Q3 2025

• Use of LLMs to aid in parameter selection and pre-determination of site conditions.
• ORCaS is currently testing several LLM approaches to aid customers with parameter selection based on site characteristics and constraints. Additionally, ORCaS is investigating post-processing using LLMs to aid in further optimization and improvement.

Status

25% complete – target release Q4 2025

• In order to better assess grading approaches and end effects of grading, a full 2D rain on grid model is being created. The model is based on a fully-explicit shock-capturing method, and is able to handle wetting and drying of cells, as well as trans-critical flow. The method maintains stability through variation of the CFL and ensuring the method maintains TVD. The method is being designed to run on GPUs, but can easily be extended to utilize multiple processors.
  
  Initial tests show that the final method should be computationally efficient enough to complete 100-year 24-hour rain on grid storms at a rate of approximately 2500 acres per hour at a 5-foot grid cell size resolution using a single nVidia RTX 4000 Ada generation GPU assuming an average 1-second timestep.
  
  The expected initial outcome is to analyze selected projects pre- and post-grading. The accuracy and resolution of the model should be sufficient for determination of depth, velocity, and scour pre-post deltas. Extension of the model to contain full watersheds or allow for input hydrographs is possible.

Improvements

• Cloud functionality — Added master cloud function for operation on both cloud and local machines with remote start capabilities.
• Input sanitization — Added basic input sanitization to help address common data formatting issues.
• NPS/Spans processing updates — Updated NPS/Spans processing function with improved error handling for file names and special characters.

New Features & Improvements

• Intuitive slope measurement display — Changed slope values in the indicative form from degrees to percentages for more intuitive input. Conservative approach now shows as 15% and 5% (formerly 8.5° and 2.7°), while aggressive approach shows as 20% and 15% (formerly 11.0° and 8.5°). The system still converts these to degrees internally for calculations.
• Updated grading polygons output to be in the proper coordinate format with slight padding.
• A new grading and row alignment system was introduced: rbestfit_adv. Row alignment avoids outliers in determination of pile placement. Grading areas are generally increased in area, but produce smoother contours and an overall ‘more constructable’ site.
• Flip to exterior logic has been updated — Updated flip to exterior algorithms can be used to force maximum east-west slope. The system now incorporates balanced calculations to ensure proper structural integration and maintains manufacturer-specific spatial relationships between adjacent rows.
• Flood freeboard analysis has been updated — Freeboard values can now be set on a row by row basis by inclusion of a column in NPS input titled ‘freeboard’. These values will override freeboard values in the constants file. Use the constants calcuator to determine freeboards.
• Span tables can now be inserted in motor-zero format. Spans should still include a m ONLY in the motor pile location. Span values prior to the 0 value need to be positive (north positive convention).
• Advanced pile placement controls — Major improvements to pile placement algorithms now allow any input values for motor deflection (mtd) and torque-tube-deflection (ttd) values [degrees]. This enhancement removes previous constraints and significantly increases the ability to test different scenarios for conservative approaches.
• Optimized grading control limits — Flip to exterior grading is now capped at five rows in each direction to avoid unnecessary propagation of row-flip caused grading.
• ORCAS preset ground slopes correction — Fixed ground slope limits in the json ORCAS presets (orcas_v72.json), correcting gslopelimitew and gslopelimitns parameters from 14.5 to 8.5 to ensure proper north-south and east-west ground slope constraints.
• Constants Builder improvements — Complete redesign of the Constants Builder online interface with enhanced styling, improved parameter organization, comprehensive tooltips, and manufacturer-specific presets. The updated tool offers streamlined workflow for configuration management with support for importing/exporting JSON configuration files.

New Features

• Slope plots can now be shown on a bay-basis — For terrain following tracker, row slope plots can now be shown on a bay-basis instead of an average row basis. Can be requested or input to the constants file as ‘B’ under [addtlplots].

• HTML interactive plots are now considered mature — Interactive 3D plots are considered mature. Updates to metadata can be made on request. Can be requested in the input forms or input to the constants file as ‘I’ under [addtlplots].

Improvements

• Webmap based indicatives: KMLs are now a valid input file type.
• KML and KMZ now work equally as input files for the webmap.
• Webmap based indicatives: When KMZ or KML are uploaded, only visible layers are used for mapping.
• Per user request, only visible KMZ or KML layers are used for mapping. As before, the only valid input layer type is a polygon layer. All others are ignored.

Improvements

• Final δY and δZ position calculations have been updated per Array Document 93002-000, Rev A-2.
• Note to users: Array Document 93002-000, Rev A-2 lists different values of L_i (bearing housing length) for aluminum and steel bearing housings. The default value is set to aluminum housings. Steel housing lengths can be used if requested.

Improvements

• During detailed analysis, if requested, DNV Solar Farmer bay location input files are now created. The user will be required to provide accurate and valid EPSG.io identifiers for the project’s current state plane coordinate system as well as the target UTM (meters) coordinate system required for DNV Solar Farmer use. For this feature to work, projects must be requested through the Project Upload Portal

Improvements

• In projects with no spans given, the logic for creating piles has been updated to place a pile approximately every 24′ (imperial) or every 7 meters (metric). Each row has a minimum of 5 pile, and all rows have an odd number of pile with the motor located in the middle pile position. The first and last piles are now located 5′ (imperial) or 1.5m (metric) from the row ends.
• In NPS files with a header row ‘numpile’ the [numpile] specified number of pile for each row will be used. If the number of pile is not even, the motor pile will be placed at ceil(numpile/2).

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed rare issue where post-graded surfaces could develop holes.

Improvements:

• Updated initial pile layout to provide accurate preliminary figures for requested grading ratio.

• Revised grading methodology to target single-pass rather than iterative methodology. If the initial best-guess provided by the updated initial pile layout is close enough, the surface is shifted in a manner to provide a near-exact grading ratio (limited only by the curvature of the final surface fit). If the initial guess is not within the required margin, a new surface is fitted before the final surface shifting.

  This improvement opens the door for rapid deployment of different approaches to grading, which should satisfy the needs of clients in all jurisdictions. Users are encouraged to submit their desired grading methodology for review and inclusion into the code.