What's new

The LINEAR Idea Channel - Submit ideas and suggestions now  
As of now, the LINEAR Idea Channel is open to you as a LINEAR customer. This new platform on our website gives you the opportunity to submit ideas and suggestions for future software developments and to rate ideas from other users. Your suggestions will be reviewed and finally published on the platform so that all customers can vote for your idea. Depending on the popularity and the evaluation by the product management, the suggestions will be passed on to the development department and will be implemented in the software. The Idea Channel is therefore your direct way to influence LINEAR software development and contribute directly to the further improvement of the software. We are looking forward to your ideas! At the moment, the platform is only available in German, but you can also add ideas in English.

Click here for the LINEAR Idea Channel.   

When using partial network ends to substitute additional potable water consumers, you can now use a simple calculation aid to calculate the total flow rates and the minimum flow pressure. To do this, simply enter the number of different consumers that are replaced by the partial network end in the component dialog. The total flow rates and the minimum flow pressure are calculated according to these specifications. For the calculation, you can either use the stored default values or enter your own values. You can also define which of the substituted consumers are relevant for flushing.

When considering heat losses to adjoining apartments, you can now set the safety class to be considered in the heating load calculation according to ISSO 51. Depending on the safety class level, the transmission losses to adjoining apartments are taken into account completely, reduced, or even ignored altogether.

Within the dynamic cooling load calculation, the quantity of high temperature hours for the individual rooms are now output in addition to the Number of Kelvin-hrs above set point in the annual simulation. The high temperature hours show how many hours a year the temperature in the room is above the required setpoint temperature.

With the new Model diagnosis in the LINEAR tab, you can now start test routines to check a Revit model for potential problems. Check routines are currently available in three areas, which you can use collectively or individually.

Embedded content:
Checking the model for problems with unused families, families that are too large, embedded DWGs and unused raster images.

Areas and Spaces:
Review of the model with respect to unplaced, unconstrained, and redundant areas /spaces. Also a plausibility check for the height of rooms can be performed.

Pipe/Duct networks
Check of direct duct connections or flex ducts without geometry, which often occur due to a too tight curve during duct construction. Air ducts with internal and external insulation can also be found and indicated.

If potential problems are found during the check, you will find the description with reference to the affected elements within the reports in the Reports and Tasks tab.

Similar to the part lists, you can now also export key lists via the Excel export in the LINEAR tab. This allows you to document and pass on the keys as well as the associated parameter values.

In the assistant for dwelling and decentralized fresh water stations, you can now use the Assign button to transfer set data to a dwelling station and optionally change the symbol or model. This makes it easy to transfer any changes, e.g. in the potable water data or the underfloor heating, to the respective dwelling station. In addition you can transfer the data of a manufacturer's station to a generic dwelling station to use it in the calculation if no Revit family is available.

In the duct network calculation, you now have the choice of whether the zeta values are also determined automatically if the flow situation lies outside the tables of the respective source (e.g. ASHRAE). To do this, activate the Extrapolate table values option. In the calculation reports, you will then see a note for the components for which extrapolation has been performed and you can check the plausibility of the values there. If the Extrapolate table values option is deactivated, no zeta values are determined for the components whose flow situation lies outside the limits. In these cases, it is then necessary to specify corresponding values.

You can now also display control levels from the heating and cooling pipe network calculation within the visualization. This allows a quick overview of where control elements are placed in the project and how many control elements are already built in before the element. The individual levels are highlighted in different colors. 

With the new ventilation device configurator, you can now easily and quickly put together an air handling unit according to your specifications using drag & drop. Setting all dimensions of the components and their connections is done directly in the input area and no longer in separate dialogs. You also have the option of defining separate installation and operating spaces for each component. You can see the result directly in the integrated 3D preview. Furthermore, units with combined circulation systems can now also be designed. 

You can now manually define the visualization in the pipe and air duct network calculations in AutoCAD. This allows you to specify the minimum and maximum values of the color scale for continuous visualizations on the one hand, and the number of intervals on the other. It is also possible to display a given interval individually in order to conveniently identify which pipes have values that are in a certain range. For example, you can highlight pipes with values above a certain limit. This function will also be available for our solution on Revit in the near future.

From now on, already with the last feature pack of the current version, you get full compatibility with the new versions of Autodesk products. Accordingly, you can already use version 22.3 with Revit 2023, AutoCAD 2023 as well as the corresponding verticals. 

The functions for displaying elements from liNear Building in the CAD model and vice versa has been fundamentally revised and improved. This makes navigation through the model and calculation much easier. Spaces as well as individual space bounding components are now highlighted in color, regardless of whether the element is located in the current model or in one of its links.
Likewise, the area proportions of objects such as walls and ceilings that result from the room assignment are taken into account, and only the corresponding part of the component in the model is highlighted when it is displayed. There are two modes for showing: If you use the magnifying glass icon, the command is executed once with the selected element and the element is shown in the CAD model. If you activate the fixed mode (magnifying glass symbol with pin), the elements selected in liNear Building will be permanently displayed automatically in the CAD model until the mode is exited again.
The function "Find CAD Element" (pipette symbol) selects the room depending on the view direction in which the element is selected in the CAD model and displays the selected element in this room in liNear Building. Thus, it makes a difference whether you select a door from the corridor side or from the room side.

In order to support you even better in using the liNear software, we have extended the help. For the liNear CAD Solutions for Revit you will now also find "recommended procedures" for the effective use of the functions. If you still encounter unexpected behavior when using the software, a look at the "Troubleshooting" will help. Here you will find suggested solutions for the respective function in order to eliminate typical errors.

On the Edit tab, the Copy storey contents function has been added. This allows you to copy all the elements of one storey to another and quickly and easily apply both the architecture and piping and other elements to the same storeys. The necessary layers are created immediately during copying using the layer key. In the dialog you decide whether all elements or only the visible elements of the storey should be copied.

In the configuration of the potable water calculation, you can now select the option that when dimensioning closed circular pipes with flow dividers based on VDI 3805 data sets, the flow type is directly taken into account during dimensioning as an additional criterion. In this case, the dimension of the circular pipe is increased until a regular exchange of the water content of the circular pipe is ensured by flushing devices or a sufficiently large peak volume flow rate. 
Furthermore, the analysis of networks with flow dividers has been further improved, so that the calculation time could be shortened, but at the same time more accurate results are obtained when considering hygiene.

In the case of outdoor installations with several protective gratings, the adjusting air volume flows at the gratings are now also calculated. The automatic calculation is activated by default. However, you can still enter values manually. To do this, remove the checkmark from the "calculate" option in the component dialog of the protective grating and enter the desired value. The possibly required pressure loss for the individual flow paths will still be calculated.

Cross-section splitting often becomes necessary where an air duct with its total cross-section cannot be passed through a structural situation at one point. In such cases, the duct is divided into parallel sections that are brought together again after the obstacle.
The duct network calculation can now detect such situations and calculate them perfectly. The flow paths created by the cross-section splitting are also compared with each other. For each individual flow path, the volume flow rate is determined based on the prevailing pressure loss. In the calculation dialog, you can recognize the sections of the cross-section separation in the area of the sections parts by indentation and colored marking of the section parts numbers.