Looking for surfaces on OpenStudio, Inspector Tool

edit

In OpenStudio 1.4 we added an "Apply Measures Now" feature. You could use it to run a measure that reports information about surfaces much like the surface search does in the SketchUp plugin. You could create info or warning messages or you could export to text or csv file.

An alternate approach is to keep a copy of your model open in the SketchUp plugin just for reference. When you get an error in the app you can quickly check it in the plugin. Of course don't try to edit and save from the plugin if you are working in the app.

Updated - Just for anyone interested, here is an example section of code that would look for sub surfaces without constructions. This would go in the run section of a measure. As is, it just reports, and doesn't change the model, but you could extend this to assign constructions. You can also ask if a construction is hard assigned to a surface, or inherits the construction from its parent space, or from the building, etc.

sub_surfaces = model.getSubSurfaces
sub_surfaces.sort.each do |sub_surface|
  if not sub_surface.construction.is_initialized
    runner.registerWarning("#{sub_surface.name} doesn't have a construction.")
  else
    const_name = sub_surface.construction.get.name
    runner.registerInfo("Everything is fine with #{sub_surface.name}. It uses #{const_name}.")
  end
end

That sounds like a difficult first model! I think @David Goldwasser is suggesting to write your own measure to find surfaces, but in case you don't have the time or experience you could instead apply the Rename Space Surfaces Based on Parent Space and Orientation measure after downloading it through the OS App.

However, this will only provide additional information if you've named your spaces with meaningful names. As a best practice I try to name my spaces according to the architectural drawings. This allows me to quickly locate a space when I need to edit it. Also, I would suggest combining spaces/zones in the future to reduce modeling and simulation time. My first real model was ~175 zones and sometimes took 30 minutes to run!

Are you familiar with the Surface Search utility? It's a button that looks like a funnel within Sketchup as part of the Openstudio Tools toolbar. This toolbar is turned on by going to the View menu>Toolbars and selecting Openstudio Tools toolbar.

More information on the Inspector and Surface Search utility can be found here under Sketchup Plugin, Information Tools: http://nrel.github.io/OpenStudio-user-documentation/reference/sketchupplugininterface/#information-tools

An example regarding functionality is in this thread: "How to model underground floors in Openstudio" here