Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
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It's difficult to say what the best approach is for your situation here, as I cannot tell what your diffusers look like, what they are made of, or how you expect them to work. In a general sense however, it is true (as stated in the previous post you mention) that SketchUp and OpenStudio (and EnergyPlus and even Radiance to an extent) do not support true curves (e.g. cylinders, discs, rings). These shapes are approximated via segmentation, and you should use as few segments as needed to suggest the behavior of the diffuser design.
As far as modeling light-blocking or -redirecting "bits" in the interior space, from a Radiance simulation perspective, I would recommend using interior partition surfaces. As these are only translated to Radiance, you can use as many surfaces to represent your design as needed.
You also mention the need to translate transmittance; presumably your diffuser has transparent or translucent elements to it? Currently the Radiance translator assumes shading and interior partition surfaces are opaque, and subsurfaces are not handled. We can certainly add support for this, it's merely a question of how best to approach it. I'm hoping others on the team can weigh in here with thoughts on how best to handle this.
In the meantime, could you flesh out your question, perhaps with an image or sketch of the diffuser design(s)? That would help guide us on the path to the best solution from the model/translator side of things.
