Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
Get started with the Help page
Ask Your Question

Revision history [back]

click to hide/show revision 1
initial version

OpenStudio system description measure

I'm doing my best to learn ruby at this point (Mechanical Engineer with limited programming experience here) to start digging into measures, but in the meantime, I'm hoping someone might be able to save me some time here.

One measure that I'd really like is a "system description" measure. This measure would parse the model and return a description of all the systems and components within the system. For example, the output report might start "The [name] facility is a 323,000 square foot facility..." It could output a description like "The walls are CMU with an insulation value of R-12", or "Air Handling Unit #1 is a variable air volume unit with a 25-hp fan and a design supply capacity of..."

This would be useful on two fronts: quality control and report template generation. For example, if I output a baseline description and it tells me the model has parallel fan powered VAV boxes everywhere, I might recognize that I forgot to add the standard reheat boxes to the new addition. Once I was happy with the output description, I could then use that as the starting point for my report (or maybe simply use it as the report text depending on the project scope/depth).

I know this is probably a pretty complex and will need customization by pretty much anyone who uses it. Is there a good starting spot for this already developed somewhere that I could use as a basis for something like this?

OpenStudio system description measure

I'm doing my best to learn ruby at this point (Mechanical Engineer with limited programming experience here) to start digging into measures, but in the meantime, I'm hoping someone might be able to save me some time here.

One measure that I'd really like is a "system description" measure. This measure would parse the model and return a description of all the systems and components within the system. For example, the output report might start "The [name] facility is a 323,000 square foot facility..." It could output a description like "The walls are CMU with an insulation value of R-12", or "Air Handling Unit #1 is a variable air volume unit with a 25-hp fan and a design supply capacity of..."

This would be useful on two fronts: quality control and report template generation. For example, if I output a baseline description and it tells me the model has parallel fan powered VAV boxes everywhere, I might recognize that I forgot to add the standard reheat boxes to the new addition. Once I was happy with the output description, I could then use that as the starting point for my report (or maybe simply use it as the report text depending on the project scope/depth).

I know this is probably a pretty complex undertaking and will need customization by pretty much anyone who uses it. Is there a good starting spot for this already developed somewhere that I could use as a basis for something like this?

OpenStudio system description measure

I'm doing my best to learn ruby at this point (Mechanical Engineer with limited programming experience here) to start digging into measures, but in the meantime, I'm hoping someone might be able to save me some time here.

One measure that I'd really like is a "system description" measure. This measure would parse the model and return a description of all the systems and components within the system. For example, the output report might start "The [name] facility is a 323,000 square foot facility..." It could output a description like "The walls are CMU with an insulation value of R-12", or "Air Handling Unit #1 is a variable air volume unit with a 25-hp fan and a design supply capacity of..."

This would be useful on two fronts: quality control and report template generation. For example, if I output a baseline description and it tells me the model has parallel fan powered VAV boxes everywhere, I might recognize that I forgot to add the standard reheat boxes to the new addition. Once I was happy with the output description, I could then use that as the starting point for my report (or maybe simply use it as the report text depending on the project scope/depth).

I know this is probably a pretty complex undertaking and will need customization by pretty much anyone who uses it. Is there a good starting spot for this already developed somewhere that I could use as a basis for something like this?

OpenStudio system description measure

I'm doing my best to learn ruby at this point (Mechanical Engineer with limited programming experience here) to start digging into measures, but in the meantime, I'm hoping someone might be able to save me some time here.

One measure that I'd really like is a "system description" measure. This measure would parse the model and return a description of all the systems and components within the system. For example, the output report might start "The [name] facility is a 323,000 square foot facility..." It could output a description like "The walls are CMU with an insulation value of R-12", or "Air Handling Unit #1 is a variable air volume unit with a 25-hp fan and a design supply capacity of..."

This would be useful on two fronts: quality control and report template generation. For example, if I output a baseline description and it tells me the model has parallel fan powered VAV boxes everywhere, I might recognize that I forgot to add the standard reheat boxes to the new addition. Once I was happy with the output description, I could then use that as the starting point for my report (or maybe simply use it as the report text depending on the project scope/depth).

I know this is probably a pretty complex undertaking and will need customization by pretty much anyone who uses it. Is there a good starting spot for this already developed somewhere that I could use as a basis for something like this?