Energy Plus | View Factor to Sky-IR details
Hi everyone!
I was looking for Energy Plus outputs which could summarize how much an external surface, such as a window, is obstructed by surrounding buildings, terraces, etc, in order to compare multiple situations.
When analysing the Heat Transfer Surface output table below, I came across the ViewFactorToSky and the ViewFactorToSky-IR, which seem to represent exactly how much any of the surfaces is obstructed (reading this tread was also really helpful).
It seems to me that the first two collumns refer to the view factor based only on surface tilt (they are either 0, 0.5 or 1) and that the last two columns (which are the '-IR' ones) consider both surface tilt and any surrounding surfaces. And they both seem to be calculated from the center point in each surface.
I roughly compared some of the ViewFactorToSky-IR values to the sky view percentage which I obtained via the Ladybug plugin shading mask for the same model and surface and they seem to match.
However, I would like to know if anyone has more info on this output or even suggestions for another output which can summarize window obstruction.
Thank you!
