create or change building physical model automatically

asked 2018-03-27 22:50:59 -0600

Amy Lee
203 ●7

updated 2018-03-28 09:30:40 -0600

MatthewSteen

10147 ●19 ●26 https://www.nrel.gov/b...

Hello energyplus community,

I'm wondering did any of you ever come across the issue of willing to create or change building physical model automatically? Like in a parametric study or something?

As IDF file can be easily edit as txt file, so change some of the input parameters are quite easy and straightforward, like setting point temperatures. But the building physical model is consisted of lists of surfaces and sub-surfaces which are interrelated(the points defining the surfaces needs to be changed altogether).

So my question is, whether there exist any method to create or change building physical model automatically in the IDF without use Openstudio coupling with Sketchup to manually draw a brand new model?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Regards, Amy

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answered 2018-03-28 10:53:59 -0600

Julien Marrec

29706 ●94 ●76 http://www.effibem.com/

updated 2018-03-28 11:02:11 -0600

The bottom line is that it depends on how complicated you want your geometry to be. If it's simple enough, then sure.

It's pretty straightforward to create building geometry using the OpenStudio bindings, in fact that's what the Sketchup User Measures "Create Standard Building Shapes" (see source here) are doing, allowing you to create a rectangle/H/U/L or courtyard floor plan with a given perimeter zone depth, floor height, and a given number of floors.

It goes without saying that your entire workflow needs to be scripted in that case: assigning spaces types to specific spaces, creating HVAC systems, etc.

Another way would be to use Rhino/Grasshopper plugged with Ladybug/Honeybee. You'd vary the breps using some switches in grashopper and that would be translated to openstudio in the end.

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Thanks for your answer, but it is not exactly what I'm trying to do. Maybe a simple example can help me specify it a bit more clearly.

Let's say I had already constructed a building model use OpenStudio manual drawing(model 1). I would like to build another brand new model(model 2) which remaining the same floor to ceiling height but enlarge the floor plan twice as it is in model 1. Can this be done without another OpenStudio drawing from scratch?

Amy Lee ( 2018-03-29 02:31:00 -0600 )edit

Here too it depends on how complicated your geometry is to begin with. If you can figure out a way to automatically compute the position of each point that would make up your floor plate, then yes.

Julien Marrec ( 2018-03-29 06:32:48 -0600 )edit

So whether there is any tool/software available to automatically compute position points?

Amy Lee ( 2018-03-30 09:06:50 -0600 )edit

@Amy Lee, there may not be a measure that does exactly what you want, but you can adapt some existing code. Here are some example approaches.

1. measure with multiplier for x, y and z axis (quick and easy but maybe not very good approach)
2. measure that makes a copy of your building x feet over from original spaces
3. measure that has x or y value to define a plane, It will then insert specified number of feet into the building at that position. (If that plane crosses a window, the window would also be stretched)

David Goldwasser ( 2018-04-02 11:49:16 -0600 )edit

Here is a code snippet for a user script that changes the interior partition height of an existing model. In this use case didn't have to alter x,y,z of zone origin, but if for example we change ceiling height, we would also have to update space zone origins.

David Goldwasser ( 2018-04-02 11:54:58 -0600 )edit

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