[TRNSYS-users] Simulating a large building of which we have the 2D Autocad2020 plans

[David BRADLEY]

Souad,

  I believe that there is a way of opening a 2d dwg as a background 
image in SketchUp so that you can then trace over it more quickly than 
if you were to start from nothing. Still, each time that I have 
encountered this issue I have found that it takes juat about the same 
amount of time if fight with and correct an automatic import or if you 
start from nothing.

  Here are a few tips that might help.

1. use as few thermal zones as possible on each floor. Often you can 
group together rooms that face a certain direction (i.e. have a 
particular sun exposure) into a single thermal zone.

2. model the plenum between floors as its own zone; this makes it much 
easier to deal with the zone adjacencies from one floor to the next.

3. rely heavily on the line drawing tool. Draw the perimeter of each 
thermal zone's floor then draw vertical lines for the corners then 
connect their tops. I have run into a lot of frustrations with the 
extrude tool.

4. where possible avoid copying and pasting zones. It is nearly as fast 
to draw another floor perimeter and walls. When I try copying and 
pasting I sometimes have trouble with SketchUp selecting things that 
aren't part of the zone that I am trying to copy.

5. do all the walls floor by floor first and then add windows after you 
have all the walls completed.

6. import the *.idf into TRNBuild and check adjacencies early and often. 
I don't usually do more than 3 or 4 zones before I save the *.idf, 
import it into TRNBuild, check it and then increase the version number 
in the name of my *.idf file. When you run into import errors I find it 
is often easier just to start over and redraw a few zones than it is to 
figure out where the error is.

7. this one is rather specific but if you are drawing opaque doors (i.e. 
walls contained within another wall) make a vertical line between the 
middle of the door lintel and the ceiling. This will break the 
containing wall into two walls and while that adds another surface for 
Type56 to deal with I have found that it avoids a lot of wall area 
calculation issues and errors in the *.idf file.

best,

  David



On 11/20/2020 06:50, Lakjiri Souad via TRNSYS-users wrote:

> Dear Trnsys users,
> I want to simulate a complex building by TRnsys 18.I have the plans of 
> the building drawn in 2D by Autocad2020 .
> What are the possible and easy ways to generate and insert the 3 D 
> building in TRnbuild18 using the 2 D autocad 2020 plans? knowing that 
> The building is large and it would take a lot of time if we use the 
> sketchup18 to model it in 3D .
> -- 
> Souad Lakjiri
> Electrical Project Engineer
> Morocco's Ministry of Health
>
> _______________________________________________
> TRNSYS-users mailing list
> TRNSYS-users at lists.onebuilding.org
> http://lists.onebuilding.org/listinfo.cgi/trnsys-users-onebuilding.org

-- 
***************************
David BRADLEY
Principal
Thermal Energy Systems Specialists, LLC
3 North Pinckney Street - suite 202
Madison, WI  53703 USA

P:+1.608.274.2577
F:+1.608.278.1475
d.bradley at tess-inc.com

http://www.tess-inc.com
http://www.trnsys.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.onebuilding.org/pipermail/trnsys-users-onebuilding.org/attachments/20201120/79d8652c/attachment.html>