Modeling university buildings in OpenStudio

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Hi Aaron,

I hope you are doing well.

I have been able to draw the 3D building in Sketchup. I have drawn it from the floor plans and it is all pushed/pulled and visible in white.

I have also added now the Openstudio plugin and would like to put this 3D building in Openstudio spaces in Sketchup. Let us say for example I want it each floor of the building to be a space and this floor has several rooms inside in which I will add windows and doors.

What is the best way I can start doing this ?

Thanks.

If you have used SketchUp and all the boxes are white, then that information can only be saved in a SketchUp file ending in .skp. This has NO energy model information that OpenStudio uses. OpenStudio files end in .osm and will actually contain the energy model information, so you need to convert your SketchUp geometry into OpenStudio geometry. You can copy/paste white boxes into new OpenStudio spaces, but it might be easier to draw the 2D floor plan and create all spaces on that floor simultaneously with the Create Spaces from Diagram tool.

You should read the Modeling Tools section of the OpenStudio SketchUp Plug-in Interface Guide from the OpenStudio Coalition to learn about how to create and edit the geometry of OpenStudio models in SketchUp. Note that an OpenStudio space is one room, and you can group spaces together into thermal zones depending upon your HVAC system arrangement and other factors.

My building architecture has concrete beams on the outside of each floor. These beams come in different shapes (Vertical and horizontal and they also have openings in them). They act as shading in which light can pass in the openings and reach the outside windows whereas light cannot pass where the concrete.

I drew them using the "New shading surface group" where I draw the surface and then do the lines of the openings and delete the surfaces (To act as the openings). When I close and open the model again, all these openings are gone and it is only the big surface left.

How do I solve this ?

@Ahmad after you use the New Shading Surface Group tool, are you entering the shading group before you draw the shade surfaces? From the link, there are 3 ways to enter a shading group after you select it. When you are drawing shade surfaces, the rest of the model geometry should be lighter than normal (similar to when you are editing the geometry of one space) and the shade surfaces should turn purple once you close the shade surface edges.