[Equest-users] modelling overhangs

Tue Nov 23 15:27:52 PST 2010

Eddie/Daka:

You might find a guide I posted a little while ago useful.  It detailed
how to approach complicated exo-skeleton structures...  Note that
building shades themselves have the restrictions of being (1) rectangles
and (2) un-tiltable, so that's why I went through the extra steps to
create the shades as walls assigned to a dummy space.

If the goal is ultimately to produce a series of rectangles, I'd
recommend creating a series of building shades however for
sanity/simplicity's sake... =)

I've copied the guide and preceding discussion below for your
convenience.

~Nick

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers

25501 west valley parkway

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 Eddie
Corwin
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:10 PM
To: aida darghouth asli; Equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] modelling overhangs

Hey, that is one of my projects!  I would recognize that one anywhere!
What you are showing in the picture are not overhangs, they are shading
devices.  They are created using "Building Shades" or "Fixed Shades".
On that particular project it was very difficult and time consuming
placing so many shading devices (due to the complex geometry and
orientation).  On a simpler geometry, it should not be a bit easier.
The shades can be found in the "Building Shell" tab.  

-Eddie

________________________________

From: aida darghouth asli <darghouthasli.aida at gmail.com>
To: Equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Sent: Wed, November 17, 2010 12:34:27 PM
Subject: [Equest-users] modelling overhangs

Dear all,

Please, there is someone who know how to model overhangs like in the
picture attached here?

Thank you for any assistance.

DAKA

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Nick
Caton
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 10:34 AM
To: Josh Greenfield
Cc: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Simple Building Shade Question

Hey Josh,

Copying this response to the community for everyone's benefit -
following is a mini-guide to how one can handle building shading for
superstructures.  Everyone - this guide may help you with any
non-rectangular shading you may need to account for in current/future
projects.  Read up from below to catch up on the whole conversation.

Alright!  This is in its own twisted way a kinda fun challenge =).  You
have to put on your M.C. Escher hat and get creative making a
tessellation!

An cross or x-pattern of shading is do-able by: 

1.       Copying a wall 

2.       Offsetting from the original by the appropriate amount (tweak
the wall coordinates till it looks offset right)

3.       Check the wall properties 

a.       Self-shading - Yes

b.      Shading Divisions - 40

4.       Copy and modify the associated polygon to create the shape you
want to repeat.  Check your work in the 3D view - note if the view goes
black you can right-click and 'reset camera.'  I experienced little
caution messages on entering the x-value for any new coordinate beyond
the first 4, but just push on through.

5.       Save

6.       Create a dummy space to assign this wall to by copying the
original (we want to retain it's coordinates):

a.       Right click the parent space and copy the space

b.      Make it unconditioned

c.       Default-out any internal loads/scheduling

d.      Give it a clever name like 'dummy zone'

7.       Re-assign the parent space of the custom-shaped offset wall to
the dummy space.

8.       *IMPORTANT TIME SAVER* Create (many) copies of your wall, but
use the "link to existing component" option.  This will let you easily
mess with the shape or properties (like that shading division figure)
later.

9.       Shift the copies by editing their z-coordinates and x or y
coordinates to make a repeating pattern.  Resulting example is below.

>From here you can more quickly do any other faces of your building as
you'll already have your polygon set up.  You'll need to create
unconditioned zones for your dummy space(s) before a calculation will
complete, by the way.

~Nick

Here's an example:

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

25501 west valley parkway

olathe ks 66061

direct 913 344.0036

fax 913 345.0617

Check out our new web-site @ www.smithboucher.com 

From: Nick Caton 
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 4:28 PM
To: Josh Greenfield
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Simple Building Shade Question

Hi Josh!

Unfortunately I haven't yet found or come up with any easy/automated way
to handle such shading, but I don't know enough to say it's impossible
either.  If had to crank out something immediately, I would suggest
approximating the 'X' pattern superstructure with a '+' pattern
providing equal shading coverage.

That said, I don't think there's any option to make fixed/building
shades angular, but you may be able to modify other self-shading
entities (like building walls) to have an 'X' shaped polygon... then
assign them to a dummy Space -  I just explored the idea and the concept
seems to work - screenshot to come shortly ;)...  

I'd like to share this with the community, would that be okay with you?

~Nick

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

25501 west valley parkway

olathe ks 66061

direct 913 344.0036

fax 913 345.0617

Check out our new web-site @ www.smithboucher.com 

From: Josh Greenfield [mailto:JGreenfield at primerachicago.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 3:56 PM
To: Nick Caton
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Simple Building Shade Question

Hey Nick...did you ever find a way to use non-rectangular polygons as
fixed shading features??  I'm doing a skyscraper that has the
super-structure on the outside ("X" pattern from top to bottom) and it
will provide a good deal of solar shading to the project, but can't seem
to figure out how to model that??!

Josh Greenfield, PE <http://www.idfpr.com/dpr/WHO/pe.asp> , REP
<http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/bldgs/supp_info/chicago_ener
gy_conservationcodeoverview.html> , LEED AP BD+C
<http://www.gbci.org/main-nav/professional-credentials/credentials.aspx>

Energy Services Manager
Associate Vice President
Primera Engineers, Ltd.
312.242.6392 Direct
jgreenfield at primerachicago.com
http://www.primerachicago.com <http://www.primerachicago.com/> 

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Nick
Caton
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 2:52 PM
To: Heather.Hardie-Hill at CH2M.com; equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Simple Building Shade Question

Heather, your end results pictured below are exactly the path I'm
currently treading, and I am hoping to find a more efficient/accurate
way to pull this off for the future.

A potential issue, as you're illustrating, is that "elbow" or
"courtyard" situations where the building perimeter is shaded on
different orientations by the same object sorta obviates the ideal case
where we could really use the ability to define a 3D object.  Restricted
only to 2D rectangular shades, intersecting 2 or more in a manner
parallel to the shaded faces (as you've done) seems the best compromise
for the moment.

The process I'm proposing below, to (hopefully cleanly) import 2D
polygon geometries and assign/reassign them to be building shades is
something I'd like to try given the time to toy around with this
further... you can count on me in any case to share should I come up
with a method that really seems to work =).

As an illustration/teaser, here's something I threw together in 3.5
minutes (timed myself) using Sketchup after a glance at Heather's
example.  It would take me a nominal amount of extra time to copy the
same trees and scale them all around a site given a landscaping plan to
reference.  Finding a bridge to import those crossed 2D polygon shapes
into equest would be a great leap in modeling the effects of
natural/manmade site shading to a more sophisticated degree - if nothing
else it might save a good deal of time and look cool =).  

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

25501 west valley parkway

olathe ks 66061

direct 913 344.0036

fax 913 345.0617

Check out our new web-site @ www.smithboucher.com 

From: Heather.Hardie-Hill at CH2M.com [mailto:Heather.Hardie-Hill at CH2M.com]

Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 12:51 PM
To: Nick Caton; equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: RE: Simple Building Shade Question

Nick,

    I had the same issue a while back and never found a really good
solution. I believe that building shades are only defined by rectangles.
I used 2 crossed rectangles (as shown below) and then assigned shading
schedules based on the types of trees they were. If you figure out a
better way, PLEASE SHARE!

Heather Hardie-Hill

CH2M HILL

Industrial & Advanced Technologies

2020 SW Fourth Ave

Portland, OR 97201

________________________________

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Nick
Caton
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 6:05 PM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] Simple Building Shade Question

Simple Building Shade Question:

Can these be defined as polygons?  

Bonus Question (or, where am I going with this?):

Is it feasible to crunch a file containing only 2D shapes through GBS to
create an *.inp so we can be import these polygons/coordinates in the
correct format, which we could then assign to individual linked building
shades, subsequently defining a shading schedule?

I wood tree-ly like to know (hint hint!!!)...

~Nick

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

25501 west valley parkway

olathe ks 66061

direct 913 344.0036

fax 913 345.0617

Check out our new web-site @ www.smithboucher.com 

________________________________

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________________________________

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