PMV and PPD
The PMV Model (=Predicted Mean Vote Model) is probably the best know biomet model. Based on Fangers (1972) model, it relates the energy balance of the human body to the personal feeling of persons exposed to the corresponding climates. Originally developed for indoor situations, it was adapted for outdoor climate by Jendritzky (1993).
Normally, the PMV scale is defined between -4 (very cold) and +4 (very hot) where 0 is the thermal neutral (comfort) value:
But as the PMV value is a function of the local climate, it can reach also values above or below the [-4] - [+4] values.
PMV is a stationary value, which means that a person is assumed to be exposed long enough to a constant climate situation until all energy exchange processes at the human body have become stationary. This is, of course, only the case if this person stands exposed to the same climate conditions for quite some time (up to 20 min in some cases).
In addition to the PMV value, ENVI-met provides the associated PPD value (=Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) which tells the percentage of people who would be dissatisfied with the climate conditions found. PMV and PPD have a linear relationship (=they can be directly transformed into one another). Therefore the PPD maps have the same spatial structures as the PMV maps have.
To use PMV and PPD in your model, you must have a [PMV] section in your configuration file.
The climBOTs
In former versions of ENVI-met the climBOT model has been included which was able to simulate the thermal processes at/in a moving person rather than a standing one. However, this module has been promoted to a stand-alone software (BOTworld). ENVI-met produces output files directly usable in BOTworld. If you are interested in bioclimate and/or Multi-Agent simulations, you should have a look at the UNCONVERTED WINHELP MACRO:! ExecFile("www.envi-met.com")ENVI-met web page, where news about BOTworld can be found.