When an IDF file is translated to an OSM model, for each thermal zone in the IDF both a space and a thermal zone are created in the OSM model. The space takes on the thermal zone name from the IDF and the thermal zone name containing the space is appended with " Thermal Zone". An OpenStudio thermal zone can contain multiple spaces, but when importing an IDF into OpenStudio it always comes in as a one to one mapping.
I wrote a quick OpenStudio measure and uploaded it to the Building Component Library (BCL) that will remove the additional text from the thermal zone name so that the names match the original IDF file. This is not a SketchUp Plugin user script so you can't run it in SketchUp. You can run it by saving your OSM file and opening it in the stand alone OpenStudio application, or by running it via command line if you are comfortable with running ruby via command line. If you use the OpenStudio application, version 1.4.0 you can apply the measure to your live model under the "Components & Measures" file menu. Below is a BCL link for reference, but you can download this from within the application if you setup a BCL account.
A few other thoughts.
- Instead of always re-importing the IDF file each time you want to edit the geometry you can save the OSM file along side the IDF so it is already ready to edit when you want to update geometry. This assumes that you are not using additional tools to edit the geometry.
- If you are only editing geometry you can use the legacy plugin, but then you would miss some features unique to the newer versions of OpenStudio.
- Lastly, you may want to consider creating an OpenStudio E+ measure to inject IDF code into your model at run-time so you don't manually have to manage and hand merge the OSM and IDF files. This could be as simple as injecting a static block of IDF text, or it can contain logic to dynamically create IDF code. This approach supports iterative design well and would allow you to incrementally move elements such as constructions, internal loads, and HVAC systems to the OSM file over time as you saw benefits from it.
I hope this helps, sorry for the forum outages. If you have problems accessing it, please send an email to OpenStudio@xxxxxxxx.
Thanks
David