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Real-time Energy Analysis Color Coded 3D Models

Gus
Newcomer
Whenever I design for energy efficiency I wish I was able to do the following:

Ya know how we can turn shadows on and off when 3D modeling?
and
Ya know how models can be created that show how much incident solar energy a model will get over a period of time, and represent that energy on the model as if it was an inverse shadow on the building? It's usually color coded so we can see where there is the most solar gain and where there is the least.

Well, what if we could turn on this "incident-solar-energy-color-coded-model" instead of turning on the shadows, and we could model in 3D while these colors were visible. I realize this would take a lot more computing power, but that time is coming. When the time comes, we would be able to model with active energy data on the model at all times rather than just shadows.

A half way point to this would be if we could turn on shadows, but the shadows that showed up were not the shadows of a particular fixed time of day, but they were the "average shadows" over a specific period of time that we designate. The most useful might be to show the "average shadows" over the period of one year so that overhangs and windows could be optimized to get the best amount of heat and cooling not just in the winter solstice and summer solstice and the equinoxes, but for the entire year as a whole.
or
you could work with two types of "average shadows" one for the heating months and one for the cooling months and you could adjust the model based on those.
or
you could just use the solstices and use the average for one full day of light at that time of year.

Does this make sense to anyone? I hope that I'm describing this well, but it's hard to tell if this idea will be understood from what I have written.
www.michaelgustavson.com Architect NY WI IL
Madison WI
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2 REPLIES 2
Erwin Edel
Rockstar
I don't really follow the 'average' shadow of the day thing, you propose. The shadows move with the sun, not only growing 'shorter' as the sun rises, but also shifting along the building facades.

For overhangs you are typically dealing with a certain part of the day and a 'worst case scenario' point in the calendar, aren't you? Or is that just with our 'northern' location here in NL with long summer days and long winter nights and high / low sun?

Some toggle for feedback on the energy calculations would be doable I suppose, but will probably be part of the eco-designer thingy.
Erwin Edel, Project Lead, Leloup Architecten
www.leloup.nl

ArchiCAD 9-26NED FULL
Windows 10 Pro
Adobe Design Premium CS5
Gus
Newcomer
What I mean by "Average" Light/shadow:
Imagine that the more solar radiation a point on a surface (in/on a building) received (during an entire day), the "hotter" the color of that point got in the model. So if (over the course of the day) a certain square inch on a wall received x units of solar radiation, that square on the surface would be light-blue in color on the model. In the same model if a particular square inch of floor material received 5x units of solar radiation during the day, that square inch of surface would be represented as the color orange. Then another square inch of surface on the roof might have 15x units of solar radiation over the course of the day, and that square inch of surface would be represented in the model as a red square. This way you would model the building based on the amount of radiation received throughout an entire day rather than the amount of sun the house is receiving at a single moment in time. This would be a better measure of the effects a change in the models form has, because it wouldn't exclude the radiation lost at 2pm when the sun went behind a neighboring building, or the extra sun received in the early morning as the sun is rising, etc.. Ideally this type of "model view option" of the model could be turned off and on as easily as the shadows are turned off and on in a 3d model. Does this make sense?
www.michaelgustavson.com Architect NY WI IL
Madison WI
Archicad21 MEP EcoDesSTAR Win10-64-bit
EliteBook8570W Corei7-3630QM@2.40GHz
QuadroK2000m RAM32 (2)250GBSSDs
4 Monitors Internet:4Up60Down