[Equest-users] Defining Building and Fixed Shades using Coordinates Alone

[Nick Caton]

Hi Arpan,

I'd hate to lead you into an unnecessarily time-consuming path, but I have on rare occasion found it helpful to approach defining complex building shades as exterior wall sections under a dummy space, which themselves can be defined referencing a polygon, which in turn can be defined in (relative) XYZ point coordinates...  What you functionally lose along the way is the ability to assign a shading schedule or otherwise alter the opacity of the resulting "shade."

Disclaimer:  Defining shades with exterior wall sections is likely going to be time consuming, however you slice it.  Like anything worth doing, right =)?

If you're interested in pursuing this, you should first consider whether the shade you're emulating  can be represented/approximated in 2D.  I did a writeup once (full discussion attached) showing how one can apply the concept above to represent a complex, repeating shape to pick up the shading of a superstructure.  Here's an illustration showing the end-result:

[cid:image005.png at 01CB5978.13595400]

To up the ante, with another tier of effort you can approach approximating 3D shapes with polygonal exterior wall sections... but I would sooner advise strongly considering whether a 2D equivalent can be defined, or if you might better invest your time learning a more complex-geometry-compliant energy modeling software (I keep meaning to do this!).  Following is a visual of using polygonal exterior wall sections as shades to achieve a 3D shape - this was not a small amount of work:

[cid:image002.png at 01CD1CAC.4CC51730]

A couple folks have, in years past, developed impressive looking export tools (from the likes of sketchup, revit and so forth) that at least appear to automate production of polygons for complex geometries in eQuest... I've never seen any of these freely distributed nor test-driven any such tool/process myself, so I can't endorse further other than to note they're out there and might be available, for a cost.

Best of luck!

~Nick

[cid:489575314 at 22072009-0ABB]

NICK CATON, P.E.
SENIOR ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers
25501 west valley parkway, suite 200
olathe, ks 66061
direct 913.344.0036
fax 913.345.0617
www.smithboucher.com

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Arpan Bakshi
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 8:07 PM
To: equest-users
Subject: [Equest-users] Defining Building and Fixed Shades using Coordinates Alone

Fixed and Building Shades are presently defined in DOE2/eQUEST using:

X-REF
Y-REF
Z-REF
HEIGHT
WIDTH
AZIMUTH

Has anyone come across an alternate specification method using coordinates only?
For example:

Point 1 (x,y,z)
Point 2 (x,y,z)
Point 3 (x,y,z)
Point 4 (x,y,z)




Arpan Bakshi, LEED AP BD+C

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/equest-users-onebuilding.org/attachments/20120417/08236536/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1459 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/equest-users-onebuilding.org/attachments/20120417/08236536/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 139092 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/equest-users-onebuilding.org/attachments/20120417/08236536/attachment-0004.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 150727 bytes
Desc: image003.png
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/equest-users-onebuilding.org/attachments/20120417/08236536/attachment-0005.png>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded message was scrubbed...
From: Nick Caton <ncaton at smithboucher.com>
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Simple Building Shade Question
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:34:19 +0000
Size: 400612
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/equest-users-onebuilding.org/attachments/20120417/08236536/attachment-0002.eml>