[BLDG-SIM] Hornet's Next - Policy for Public Investment in En ergy Software

[John P. Karasaki, P.E.]

Charles,
 
I read your attachment.  Thanks.  I am confused about one issue, though:
Since PowerDOE has a graphical interface and uses DOE2.2 as the simulation
engine, where does that leave VisualDOE?  In Strategy #2?  These seem to be
competing rather than cooperating products going after a very small market
(2000 users by your numbers).
 
If VisualDOE does anything better than PowerDOE, maybe those advanced
features could be integrated into PowerDOE?  This addresses, in a arguably
basic way, the public funds issue Jeff Hirsch raised.
 
The market appears, in my humble and non-expert opinion, to be too small to
support all the simulation software packages currently available.  This
might be diluting public funds.  Again, that's just a wild guess on my part,
but I'd rather have one awesome product vs. many good ones.
 
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: Charles Eley [mailto:celey at dnai.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 12:42 PM
To: BLDG-SIM at gard.com
Subject: [BLDG-SIM] Hornet's Next - Policy for Public Investment in Energy
Software




Back in October, I wrote down some ideas on how public funds ought to be
invested in energy software. I shared the paper with a few friends, but have
not "gone public" with it. Since a lot of the issues raised in the "hornet's
nest" series are addressed in the paper, I feel now is an appropriate time
to share my views with others. The central theme of the proposed policy is
that public investments ought to be made in a way that encourage private
sector software developers to invest their own funds. This will leverage
scarce public funds. Too often public investments in energy software have
had the opposite effect, causing private developers to scale back or even
withdraw from the business. The paper offers guidelines, which I think would
achieve this goal. At this point, the opinions in the policy paper are mine
and mine alone.. I welcome your comments.
 
To address a few additional points raised in the "hornet's nest" series:
 
VisualDOE 2.6 has a rudimentary link with CADD programs that works OK, but
is not perfect. The problem is that about 90% or more of CADD files are not
object oriented. In reality they are little more than a collection of lines,
arcs and circles. We can recognize a line in the file, but often do not know
if it represents a edge of a wall, the centerline of a duct, or a joint in
the concrete floor. Until more CADD programs become object oriented and
carry around the properties that matter to modelers, there is not much point
in making a link. 
 
The latest version of VisualDOE, Version 3.0, works with DOE-2.2. An
announcement was made in the Summer 1999 issue of the User's News. However,
the newsletter editors removed all reference to "DOE-2.2" before the article
was published, so the only way to know that DOE-2.2 is supported is to make
a connection with the new features that are discussed in the article. The
"hornet's nest" has prevented us from officially releasing Version 3.0. 
 
Charles Eley
Eley Associates
charles at eley.com <mailto:charles at eley.com> 


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