n common tasks like updating GH definitions, viewing images on the GH canvass, and augmenting existing study-types. Most of the improvements to Honeybee have been in the making for a while and are just getting into the spotlight with this release. Notably, a number of improvements have been made to support large-scale full building energy models, including fixes to memory issues with large models, better components for splitting building masses into zones, and the ability to store HBZones in external files. Additionally, the THERM workflows have gotten a boost and these simulations can now be run directly from the Grasshopper canvass.
As always you can download the new release from Food4Rhino. Make sure to remove the older version of Ladybug and Honeybee before you do so and update your scripts. So, without further adieu, here is the list of the new capabilities added with this release:
LADYBUG
Better Method for Updating Old Grasshopper Files - As many of you have come to realize, Ladybug + Honeybee is updated on a fairly regular basis, with a stable release roughly every 6 months and a github version that never ceases to improve itself on a weekly basis. For this reason, we realize that updating old Grasshopper definitions to use recent components is a challenge for many of us. While we’ve had some methods for this in the past, there were always hiccups, particularly when it came to components that had new inputs/outputs since the previous version. Accordingly, Mostapha has added a new “Ladybug_Update File” component that will automatically update any Grasshopper Definition to be synchronized with the version of Ladybug+Honeybee that is currently in your toolbar (aka. the components in your userobjects folder). If there is a component that has new inputs/outputs since the time you built the definition, it will be automatically circled in red in your GH definition and a newer version of the component will be automatically added right next to this component:
While you still have to do some manual connecting of inputs to the newer component in this case, it should be much faster than our older methods and will hopefully help your old definitions survive long into the future!
EPWmap Now includes OneBuilding Files - Mostapha has added a number of new features to the EPWmap web interface that the “Download Ladybug” component connects to. Among the improvements are a color wheel that quickly shows you how hot, cold, and comfortable a given climate is and, perhaps more importantly, there is now support for EPW files sourced from OneBuilding. With the addition of many more weather files, you should now be able to use Ladybug with ease for more locations across the planet. We should also note that the “Open EPW and STAT” component that downloads/unzips files from a URL now supports OneBuilding URLs.
New Image Viewer Component - Mingbo Peng has graced Ladybug with a fantastic new “Image Viewer” component that takes a given image file on one’s machine and displays it on the Grasshopper canvas. It also enables one to pull color data off of the image with ease by simply clicking on the pixel of the image one is interested in. This new component is useful for a wide variety of cases, including the viewing of screenshots after they have been taken with the “Ladybug_Capture View” or “Ladybug_Render View” components. However, many of you will likely recognize it as most immediately useful in workflows involving image-based Honeybee Daylight (Radiance) simulations. This is particularly true as Migbo has built-in the capability to read many image file types, including PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF and the High Dynamic Range (.HDR) image files that Radiance Outputs:
The following video gives a quick overview of the Image Viewer’s capabilities:
The new component can be found under the Ladybug_Extra tab and I think I speak for us all in saying thank you Mingbo for this great component!
New Sun Shades Calculator Released Under WIP - After over a year of software development and nearly a career's worth of geometric math development, a joint effort between Abraham Yezioro and Antonello Di Nunzio has produced a new sun shade design component that can be described as nothing short of “magical.” Based on a similar principle to the current “Ladybug_Shading Designer,” the new component takes an input of sun vectors and produces shade geometries that can block the vectors. However, in comparison to the shading designer, the range of shade options that are available in this new component is truly staggering, ranging from classic overhangs, louvers and fins to pergolas and custom shade surfaces. Perhaps more importantly, the calculation methods used by this new component are faster and more reliable. It can currently can be found under the WIP section of Ladybug and it will continue to evolve in new versions of Ladybug.
Renewable Component Now Support Sandia and CEC Photovoltaics Modules - Polishing off his many contributions to the “Renewables” section of Ladybug, Djordje Spasic has added support for a couple more ways of defining Photovoltaic modules for renewables estimation. Specifically, the Ladybug WIP section now includes components to import modules defined with the California Energy Commission (CEC) and Sandia Labs.
HONEYBEE
Support for OpenStudio 2.x - A few months ago, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) released a stable version of OpenStudio version 2, which included a number of improvements in stability and available features. This stable release of Honeybee is built to work with the new version of OpenStudio and, in the coming months, Honeybee will be adding a few more capabilities to its OpenStudio workflows to support v2.x’s new capabilities. Most notable among these will be support for OpenStudio measures. Measures are short scripts written in Ruby using OpenStudio’s SDK to quickly edit and change OpenStudio models. They are fundamental to visions of OpenStudio as a flexible energy modeling interface and to Honeybee’s goals of being a collaborative interface between the architectural and engineering industries. Stay tuned for the next release for many of these new capabilities!
Critical Memory Issue Fixed for Large Energy Models - A number of you wonderful members of our community have been aware of computer memory issues with large Honeybee models for some time (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4). Namely, a model that is larger than 50 zones could quickly eat up 16 GBs of memory and change Honeybee from a fast-flying insect to something more reminiscent of a snail. We are happy to say that, after a much longer time than it should have taken us, we finally identified and fixed the issue. In this version of Honeybee, such large models can now be created using less than 2% of the memory and time previously. Thanks to all of you who made us aware of this and hopefully you will now reap the rewards of your struggle.
Split Building Mass Component Getting a Makeover - Many of you veteran Ladybug users will recognize Saeran Vasathakumar as one of the original contributors of Ladybug who added components for solar fans and envelopes years ago. Now he’s back with new components to split a building mass into zones that are truly revolutionary in their speed and methodology. Saeran has divided the new capabilities into two components (one for floor-by-floor subdivision and another for core-perimeter subdivision) and they both can be found under the WIP section of this release. In this WIP version, core-perimeter thermal zones can only be generated for all convex and very simple concave geometries. Most concave geometries and geometries with holes (or courtyards) in them will fail. However it can handle even very complex convex geometries with speed and ease. You can expect the component to start accommodating concave/courtyard geometries very soon.
Load / Dump HB Objects to File - Keeping in line with the support of large, full building energy models, this release includes full support for two components that can dump and load any HBObjects to a standalone file. All information about HBzones can go into this file including custom constructions, schedules, loads, natural ventilation, shading devices, etc. You can then send the resulting .HB file to someone else and they can load up the same exact zones in another definition. This also makes it possible to have one Grasshopper file for generating the zones and running the simulation and another GH definition to import results and color zones/surfaces with those results, make energy balance graphics, etc.
Write ViewFactorInfo to File - After many of you asked for it, the _viewFactorInfo that is output from the “Honeybee_View Factor” component can now be written out to an external file using the same Load / Dump HB Objects components cited above. For those of you who have worked with the comfort map workflows, you probably already know that calculating these view factors is one of the most time consuming portions of building a microclimate map. Having to re-run this calculation each time you want to open up the Grasshopper script is a nuisance and, thanks to this new capability, you should only have to run it once and then store your results in an external .HB file.
Transform Honeybee Components Modified for Large Model Creation - Many large buildings today are made up of copies of the same rooms repeated over and over again across multiple floors, or along a street, etc. Accordingly, one can imagine that the fastest way to create a full building energy model of such buildings is to simply move and copy the same zones several times. This is what a new set of edits to the Honeybee Transform components is aimed at supporting by allowing one to build a custom set of zones, translate them several times with a Honeybee_Transform component, then solve adjacencies on all zones to make a complete energy model.
Central Plants Available on HVAC Systems - While Honeybee has historically supported the assigning of separate HVAC systems to different groups of zones, each HVAC was always an entirely new system from the ground up. So a building with separate VAV systems for each floor would be modeled with a different chiller and boiler for each floor. While this can be the case sometimes, it is more common to have only one chiller and boiler per building but separate air systems for each floor. The new ‘centralPlant_’ options on the Honeybee coolingDetails and heatingDetails enable you to create this HVAC structure by making a single boiler and chiller for any HVAC systems that have this option toggled on. Furthermore, in the case of VRF systems, you can also centralize the ventilation system, using the grouping of zones around a given HVAC to assign which zone terminals are connected to a given heat pump.
More HVAC Templates Added - As the profession continues to push the industry standard towards lower-energy HVAC systems, Honeybee intends to keep up. In this release, we have included a few more templates for modeling advanced HVAC systems including Radiant Ceilings, Radiant Heated Floors + VAV Cooling, and Two Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) systems. Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems have also gotten a large boost as it is now possible to model these systems with more efficient water-source loops. The next release will include the ability to model central ground source systems that use hydronics for heating cooling delivery.
Run THERM Simulations Directly from Grasshopper - Anyone who has used the THERM workflow in the past likely realized that, while Honeybee can write the THERM file, you would still have to open model in THERM yourself and hit “simulate” to get results. Now that LBNL has started a transition to becoming more open, they have graciously allowed free access for everyone to run THERM from a command line. What this means for Honeybee is that you no longer need to open THERM at all in order to get results and you can now work entirely in Rhino/Grasshopper. This also opens up the possibility of long parametric runs with THERM models since you can now automatically run simulations and collect results as you animate sliders, use galapagos, etc. A special thanks is due to the LBNL team for exposing this feature, including Setphen Selkowitz, Christian Kohler, Charlie Curcija, Eleanor Lee, and Robin Mitchell.
All Options Exposed for THERM Boundary Conditions - To finish off the full implementation of THERM in Honeybee, a final component has been added called “Honeybee_Custom Radiant Environment.” This component completes the access to all boundary condition options that THERM offers, including separate radiant and air temperatures, different view factor models, and the specification of additional heat flux (which is typically used to account for solar radiation).
Improvements to Schedule-Generating Components - Many of you who have watched the Honeybee energy modeling video tutorials have likely gotten in the habit of using CSV schedules for everything. While this is definitely one valid way to work, it is not always the most efficient since simple schedules can be specified much more cleanly to EnergyPlus/OpenStudio and the use of CSVs can also make it difficult to share your energy models (since you have to send CSV files along with the schedules themselves). This release adds two new schedule components that should take care of a lot of cases where CSV schedules were unnecessary. The new “Constant Schedule” component allow you to quickly make a schedule that is set at a single value or a set of constantly repeating 24-hour values. The second component allows you to create “Seasonal Schedules” by connecting “week schedules” from the other schedule components along with analysis periods in which these seek schedules operate. Together, these will hopefully make our schedule-generating habit a bit better as a community.
Lastly, many of you may know Mingbo Peng as the current maintainer of the Design Explorer web interface and the Colibri components under TTToolbox. Both of these tools have been revolutionary in enabling “brute force” studies of design spaces (aka. Grasshopper scripts where one runs all combinations of a set of sliders). Now, Mingbo has graced Ladybug with the aforementioned image viewer component and it is with pride that we welcome Mingbo Peng to the development team!
As always let us know your comments and suggestions.Cheers!
The Ladybug Tools Development Team
…
ger work.
Be aware, this release breaks file-forwards compatibility. You will not be able to open gh and ghx files saved with 0.8.0050 on previous versions, though of course you should be able to open old files without problems. If this is not the case, please yell loudly.
If you're having trouble loading Grasshopper, note that you must have the latest Microsoft C++ Runtimes installed on your machine. They can be downloaded from the microsoft website.
The new release can be downloaded from the usual location.
Here's a list of changes, additions and fixes since 0.8.0013:
File format forwards compatibility has been broken. You will not be able to open files saved with 0.8.0050 on earlier versions.
This release contains many breaking changes and GHA libraries compiled for older version may not work anymore.
Grasshopper Binary files (*.gh) are now saved as compressed data.
Grasshopper Binary files (*.gh) are now the default format.
Support for ancient versions of the Text Panel (still called Post-It from back then) has been removed.
Support for ancient versions of the Path Mapper (still called Path Lexer from back then) has been removed.
Placeholders for ancient versions of the Graph Mapper have been removed.
Gradient input parameters now show state tag icons (Reversed, Flatten etc.).
Geometry Cache name changes are now updated on every key press.
Geometry Cache name changes can now be cancelled with Escape.
Geometry Cache name changes can now be undone.
Mesh|Mesh intersection component now uses a different algorithm. The old behaviour is still available from the component menu.
Warning and Error balloons are now drawn as part of a Canvas Widget and will no longer show up in the Hi-Res image export.
Galapagos now accepts multiple fitness values. The true fitness will be the average of the collection.
Galapagos wires are drawn much fainter when the Galapagos object is unselected.
Medium fast redraw mode in Galapagos now immediately redraws instead of at the end of each generation.
Redesigned all Grasshopper file format icons and added larger size icons for high-dpi explorer views.
Redesigned the Most Recently Used files menu, it should now display much quicker.
Compass widget has been rewritten in an attempt to increase display performance.
Added preferences section for Compass widget.
Added preferences section for Align widget.
Added preferences section for Default Preview colours.
Added preferences section for Document Preview colours.
Added preferences section for the Most Recently Used files menu.
The Area component now accepts Breps, Meshes and Planar Closed Curves.
The Area Centroid component now accepts Breps, Meshes and Planar Closed Curves.
The Volume component now accepts Breps and Meshes.
The Volume Centroid component now accepts Breps and Meshes.
Added Merge Faces component (Surface.Util panel).
Added a Mesh Smooth component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added a Curve Seam component (Curve.Util panel).
Added Interpolate Curve With Tangents component (Curve.Spline dropdown).
Added GrasshopperFolders command to open Settings, Components and UserObject folders without loading the core plugin.
The window that reports on certain Loading Errors now has a Copy button.
Added Simplify post-process filter to parameters (in addition to Reverse, Flatten and Graft).
Parameter post processes (Reverse, Flatten, Graft & Simplify) can now also be assigned to output parameters.
Version History window now has formatting (not happy with this, I'm working on something better).
The Process Info window is gone.
Main menu has been redesigned.
Canvas toolbar has been redesigned.
Canvas context menu has been replaced by a Radial Menu.
Canvas now has a radial menu which will pop up on Middle Mouse Button clicks.
It's possible to switch between Radial and Legacy menus in the Preferences (Interface.Canvas section).
'Save As Copy' feature has been replaced by 'Save Backup' which is a GUI-less save including date+time stamp.
Added a 'Show in Folder' item to the File menu.
AutoSave settings are no longer available from the File menu, you now need to use the Preferences.
Selection shifts now also modify the view so you can use Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right to navigate up and downstream.
Mesh Edge display can now be toggled with Ctrl+M.
Preview modes now have shortcuts (Ctrl+1 = no preview, Ctrl+2 = wireframe, Ctrl+3 = shaded).
Solution States now have a default name.
Data Viewer window now responds to all required events.
Data Viewer window can now handle input and output parameters as well.
Canvas Navigation pane can now be dragged using the icon in the upper left corner.
The Persistent Data Editor has been redesigned.
It's now possible to select multiple items in the Persistent Data Editor list and edit their properties.
It's now possible to drag multiple items at the same time in the Persistent Data Editor list.
Item addition to the Persistent Data Editor is much improved.
The Persistent Data Editor is now non-modal.
The Canvas would remain black upon maximizing the Rhino window, this is fixed.
Sliders would cause multiple updates under certain conditions, this is fixed.
Digit Scrollers would cause multiple updates under certain conditions, this is fixed.
Pipes were inside out. This is fixed.
The curve component would not adjust invalid nurbs degrees, this is fixed.
Curves referencing Brep edges failed to load, this is fixed.
Points referencing Brep edges failed to load, this is fixed.
Referenced dlls in the VB/C# components sometimes resulted in invalid imports statements, this is fixed.
Pasting geometry in Rhino would cause a recompute of the Grasshopper solution, this is fixed.
Importing a file into the Rhino document would cause a recompute of the Grasshopper solution, this is fixed.
Galapagos would trigger superfluous solutions, this is fixed.
Mesh Solid Difference had a wrong name and description, this is fixed.
Several menu items were not greyed out despite not being usable, this is fixed.
The position and size of the Grasshopper window failed to get stored on Rhino shutdown, this is fixed.
The Persistent Data Editor would crash on parameters that did not support data proxies, this is fixed.
I'll add some additional information regarding some of the new UI features in subsequent posts.
--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia…
tal at food4Rhino:
http://www.food4rhino.com/project/ladybug-Honeybee?ufh
Before addressing the changes in the software itself, we would like to announce the start of two new resources that have been added to help everyone learn and share knowledge across our community.
NEW RESOURCES
GH Example File Sharing - After recognizing how important example files are for sharing knowledge and capabilities in our community, we have initiated a github-based platform for sharing Grasshopper definitions called Hydra:https://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/index.htmlWhile the database of files is a little over 50 files at the moment, it is hoped that this will become THE forum where much of collective knowledge is exchanged and shared into the future. As you can see by clicking on any of the examples, you now are able to get a high-res visual of both the Rhino scene and the GH canvas without having to download files to your machine. Furthermore the search functionality through the database enables you to quickly and easily see all that our community has contributed on certain subjects (just by searching “shade” or “wind” for example).In addition to other files that have been contributed, you can find all of the original Ladybug examples here:https://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/index.html?keywords=LBExampleFilesAnd all of the original Honeybee examples here:https://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/index.html?keywords=HBExampleFiles
LB+HB Documentation - While our historical practice of including all documentation within component descriptions may have sufficed up until this point, we have since recognized that an online database of all this documentation would be helpful. Now, you can search for key terms throughout the entire documentation of the project in our beautiful online documentation database created by Mostapha:https://www.gitbook.com/book/mostapharoudsari/ladybug-primer/detailshttps://www.gitbook.com/book/mostapharoudsari/honeybee-primer/details
And now, onto the major changes and enhancements in the software:
LADYBUG
Photovoltaics Components - Based on original code from NREL’s PVWatts (http://pvwatts.nrel.gov), Djordje Spasic and Jason Sensibaugh have built a set of 5 components that perform detailed estimate of the electricity generated by Rhino/Grasshopper surfaces when populated with Photovoltaics (PV) modules.Components allow definition of losses and shading, finding optimal tilt and orientation angles, analysing performance, energy value, consumption and emissions of the PV system.
Enhanced Solar Envelope - Boris Plotnikov has contributed a solar envelope component that is not only much faster and more stable than the previous component but also allows you to input the geometries of buildings for which you would like to ensure solar access. This enables customization of the solar envelope to specific urban contexts in a manner that the previous envelope did not. The component also features a “solar access” option that draws the envelope above which a given site receives sun from a set of sun vectors. An example file can be found here:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=boris-p&fork=hydra&id=SolarEnvelope
Adaptive Comfort Chart - To assist with understanding the variations of the adaptive comfort model, an Adaptive Comfort Chart component has been added that functions in a similar manner to the psychrometric chart for the PMV model. In addition to granting a visualization of the adaptive standard itself, the chart is also particularly helpful for displaying the results of energy simulations in relation to the comfort polygon. The chart is based off of the UC Berkeley Center for the Built Environment’s Comfort Tool (http://comfort.cbe.berkeley.edu/) (https://github.com/CenterForTheBuiltEnvironment/comfort_tool). An example file can be found here:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Adaptive_Comfort_Chart
Full Support for US + European Thermal Comfort Standards - Ladybug now supports the ability to model any of the variations of the Adaptive/PMV models for both the US (ASHRAE) and European (ISO) standards. This includes varying thresholds of percentage of people dissatisfied (PPD), varying thresholds for humidity ratios, the ability to use either a monthly average or daily running mean temperatures in the adaptive model, and even some functions that are not yet a part of these standards but are referenced widely in thermal comfort research. Such widely referenced functions include the ability to apply the adaptive model’s method to conditioned or mixed-mode buildings as well as the application of the adaptive model to times of the year when it is considered too cold by ASHRAE and the ISO for an adaptive standard. All of these variations on the standards can be accessed through the new “PMV Comfort Parameters” and “Adaptive Comfort Parameters” components. As a final nod to dual support for US/European standards, it is now possible to view the psychrometric chart as a Molier i,x diagram.
EPWMap - After years of struggling with the text-based indexing of the DOE’s epw file database, it is now possible to search for weather files using a map interface and search bar thanks to Mostapha’s recent web interface built with D3 and GoogleMaps (http://mostapharoudsari.github.io/epwmap/). From here on out, the Ladybug “Download EPW” component will direct you to this interface.
“RunItAll” Released as “Fly” - In preparation for future features that will assist with exploring of large multidimensional design spaces, this release of Ladybug includes a component by the name of “Fly” that is meant to run through all of the combinations of a given set of sliders. Those who follow this forum closely might recognize it as a reincarnated version of a component called “RunItAll” that appeared in some older example files. You can find an example file here: http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=mostaphaRoudsari&fork=hydra_1&id=Parametric_Daylight_Analysis
Shade Benefit Evaluator Validated + Published - After a long process of testing, the key functions within the comfort and energy shade benefit evaluator components have been validated against several similar software and energy modeling tools. A paper published to the SimAUD conference regarding this validation can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tvdj6d2giswurew/SIMAUD_Paper12.pdf?dl=0. Special recognition goes to Panagiotis Samaras, who ran many of these intensive tests for his thesis. Along with this validation, there are a few more variables that have been exposed to allow more freedom of running the shade benefit functions including the use of higher sky resolutions and multiple shade benefit test regions for a given shade.
Color Gradient Library - After realizing that several of us wanted quick access to common color gradients that we frequently plug into the Legend Parameters component, we have now added a component called “Color Gradient Library” to do just this. An image displaying all of these gradients can be found here:https://github.com/mostaphaRoudsari/ladybug/blob/master/resources/gradients.jpgAnd an example file showing how to use the library can be found here:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Color_LibraryIf you feel that there is a common gradient that is currently missing, feel free to start a discussion on our GH group about it and we should include it soon.
Solar Time Available - The Ladybug Sunpath now includes an option to display solar time, which many have found to be more intuitive and easy to work with when designing with solar geometry. Solar time is also useful for minimizing an east vs west bias that can develop in sunlight hour studies without having to generate sun vectors at very small timesteps.
Monthly/Daily Totals for Hourly Data - The Ladybug “Average Data” component now includes the ability to total the values for months and days (as opposed to timply averaging them). This is useful particularly when you want to get monthly or daily values of total energy or visualize these totals on the monthly bar chart.
Increased IP Functionality - This release of Ladybug includes several more features that assist with converting data for an IP audience including the ability to view an IP Psychrometric or Adaptive Chart by plugging in temperature values in Farenheit as well as a number of and new converter components for the following: Wh to BTU, R-Value SI to R-Value IP, m/s to mph, Liters to Gallons. Note that Honeybee is still largely SI (requiring your Rhino model to be in meters to run energy simulations).
Mesh-to-Hatch and Future BakeIt Plans - Given that the current BakeIt_ option has only been implemented on a few components with relatively minimal use, it has been decided that future implementations of BakeIt_ will provide not just a means of recording parametric results in the Rhino scene but will also support a full pathway to vector-based programs (like Illustrator and Inkscape). As such, BakeIt_ will place text in the Rhino scene as actual editable text (not meshes) and colored meshes will be output as groups of colored hatches (so that they appear as color-filled polygons in vector-based programs). In order to give those interested in this future capability a chance to experiment at the present, a “Mesh-To-Hatch” component has been added to the Extra tab.
HONEYBEE
Fully Functional Microclimate Maps - Finally, after a long and arduous thesis followed by a couple of months of bug-fixing, Chris Mackey is pleased to announce that the ability to produce high resolution temperature maps from EnergyPlus results is complete. Together, these maps account for four key variables that produce microclimatic diversity in and around buildings - MRT variation from different surface temperatures, solar radiation shining directly on occupants, average air temperature diversity, and air temperature stratification. In addition to using these 4 variables to produce high-resolution visuals of temperature, it is also possible to produce maps of thermal comfort by using any of the three primary thermal comfort models in Ladybug (PMV, Adaptive, and Outdoor (UTCI)). Support currently exists to produce maps for both indoor and outdoor conditions and, while the temperature values and indoor comfort values currently produced are highly accurate, the outdoor wind speeds are calculated using the simplified assumptions of EnergyPlus and will be revised to enable more accurate accounting for the effects of wind on outdoor comfort in the next stable release. The whole workflow is broken down into eight components that can all be found under the 9 | Energy Energy tab. For some videos showing some time-lapse thermal renderings made from these tools see this video playlist:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLruLh1AdY-Sj3ehUTSfKa1IHPSiuJU52AFor the full 150-page documentation of the tools produced for Chris’s thesis, see this link:https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4r4rd279y4td9n/Mackey_Thesis.pdf?dl=0Finally, if you want to dive in and produce some comfort maps for yourself, you can find an example file here for indoor maps:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Indoor_Microclimate_MapAnd an example file here for outdoor maps:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Outdoor_Microclimate_Map
Thermal Autonomy / Thermal Comfort Percent - In addition to the new thermal mapping capabilities, this release includes the ability to use these maps to calculate a series of spatial thermal comfort metrics that are meant to mirror the metrics currently used to evaluate daylight (daylight autonomy, UDI, etc.). Specifically, these metrics are the following:Thermal Comfort Percent - The percentage of occupied time that a given point in space is thermally comfortable.Thermal Autonomy - The percentage of occupied time that a given point in space is thermally comfortable without the addition of any heating or cooling energy.Overheated Hours - The percentage of occupied time when a given point is space is too hot to be thermally comfortable.Underheated Hours - The percentage of occupied time when a given point is space is too cold to be thermally comfortable.All of these metrics can be accessed through the “Thermal Autonomy Analysis” component and you can find an example file here:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Comfort_Autonomy
Energy Balance Visualizations - In order to help understand the flow of energy through Honeybee energy models, it is now possible to completely reconstruct the energy balance calculation of EnergyPlus from the energy simulation results. This is facilitated by the new EnergyPlus “Construct Energy Balance” component and some new features added to the monthly bar chart. See here for an example:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Energy_Balance
More Geometry Control for Glazing - In order to make it faster to assign several different types of glazing geometries to your energy models, the “AddHBGlz” can now be used to add glazing surfaces to HBzones (not just HBsurfaces). Furthermore, the “Glazing Based on Ratio” component now contains several more inputs that enable you to customize window geometry on orthogonal surfaces, including the ability to set the horizontal distance between windows and the ability to split windows vertically into a lower view window and higher daylight window.
Earth Tube Capability - Thanks to the efforts of Anton Szilasi, it is now possible to assign earth tubes to your energy models in order to test the potential of this powerful passive strategy. See here for an example file:http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=antonszilasi&fork=hydra&id=HB_EarthTube
North Input For Annual Daylight - After the toil of having to rotate your model any time you wanted to run an annual daylight analysis, we are happy to announce that the annual daylight recipe now contains a working “North” input.
Honeybee Object Transforms - After realizing that many of us wanted to construct energy models of multi-story buildings by duplicating and moving zones, this capability is now easily facilitated with a set of three components to duplicate and transform your HBObjects. Specifically, this includes a component to move (translate) your HBObject, mirror (reflect) your HBObject, and rotate your HBObject. Using these components ensures that any properties that you have assigned to your original HBObject will be present in the transformed HBOjbect, allowing you to build large energy models very quickly. The three components can currently be found under the WIP tab.
And finally, it is with great pleasure that we welcome Boris Plotnikov to the team. As mentioned in the above release notes, Boris has added a highly advanced solar envelope component to the project.
As always let us know your comments and suggestions.
Enjoy!
Ladybug+Honeybee development team
…
lly it should not make much of a difference - random number generation is not affected, mutation also is not. crossover is a bit more tricky, I use Simulated Binary Crossover (SBX-20) which was introduced already in 1194:
Deb K., Agrawal R. B.: Simulated Binary Crossover for Continuous Search Space, inIITK/ME/SMD-94027, Convenor, Technical Reports, Indian Institue of Technology, Kanpur, India,November 1994
Abst ract. The success of binary-coded gene t ic algorithms (GA s) inproblems having discrete sear ch sp ace largely depends on the codingused to represent the prob lem variables and on the crossover ope ratorthat propagates buildin g blocks from pare nt strings to childrenst rings . In solving optimization problems having continuous searchspace, binary-co ded GAs discr et ize the search space by using a codingof the problem var iables in binary st rings. However , t he coding of realvaluedvari ables in finit e-length st rings causes a number of difficulties:inability to achieve arbit rary pr ecision in the obtained solution , fixedmapping of problem var iab les, inh eren t Hamming cliff problem associatedwit h binary coding, and processing of Holland 's schemata incont inuous search space. Although a number of real-coded GAs aredevelop ed to solve optimization problems having a cont inuous searchspace, the search powers of these crossover operators are not adequate .In t his paper , t he search power of a crossover operator is defined int erms of the probability of creating an arbitrary child solut ion froma given pair of parent solutions . Motivated by t he success of binarycodedGAs in discret e search space problems , we develop a real-codedcrossover (which we call the simulated binar y crossover , or SBX) operatorwhose search power is similar to that of the single-point crossoverused in binary-coded GAs . Simulation results on a number of realvaluedt est problems of varying difficulty and dimensionality suggestt hat the real-cod ed GAs with t he SBX operator ar e ab le to perform asgood or bet t er than binary-cod ed GAs wit h t he single-po int crossover.SBX is found to be particularly useful in problems having mult ip le optimalsolutions with a narrow global basin an d in prob lems where thelower and upper bo unds of the global optimum are not known a priori.Further , a simulation on a two-var iable blocked function showsthat the real-coded GA with SBX work s as suggested by Goldberg
and in most cases t he performance of real-coded GA with SBX is similarto that of binary GAs with a single-point crossover. Based onth ese encouraging results, this paper suggests a number of extensionsto the present study.
7. ConclusionsIn this paper, a real-coded crossover operator has been develop ed bas ed ont he search characte rist ics of a single-point crossover used in binary -codedGAs. In ord er to define the search power of a crossover operator, a spreadfactor has been introduced as the ratio of the absolute differences of thechildren points to that of the parent points. Thereaft er , the probabilityof creat ing a child point for two given parent points has been derived forthe single-point crossover. Motivat ed by the success of binary-coded GAsin problems wit h discrete sear ch space, a simul ated bin ary crossover (SBX)operator has been develop ed to solve problems having cont inuous searchspace. The SBX operator has search power similar to that of the single-po intcrossover.On a number of t est fun ctions, including De Jong's five te st fun ct ions, ithas been found that real-coded GAs with the SBX operator can overcome anumb er of difficult ies inherent with binary-coded GAs in solving cont inuoussearch space problems-Hamming cliff problem, arbitrary pr ecision problem,and fixed mapped coding problem. In the comparison of real-coded GAs wit ha SBX operator and binary-coded GAs with a single-point crossover ope rat or ,it has been observed that the performance of the former is better than thelatt er on continuous functions and the performance of the former is similarto the lat ter in solving discret e and difficult functions. In comparison withanother real-coded crossover operator (i.e. , BLX-0 .5) suggested elsewhere ,SBX performs better in difficult test functions. It has also been observedthat SBX is particularly useful in problems where the bounds of the optimum
point is not known a priori and wher e there are multi ple optima, of whichone is global.Real-coded GAs wit h t he SBX op erator have also been tried in solvinga two-variab le blocked function (the concept of blocked fun ctions was introducedin [10]). Blocked fun ct ions are difficult for real-coded GAs , becauselocal optimal points block t he progress of search to continue towards t heglobal optimal point . The simulat ion results on t he two-var iable blockedfunction have shown that in most occasions , the sea rch proceeds the way aspr edicted in [10]. Most importantly, it has been observed that the real-codedGAs wit h SBX work similar to that of t he binary-coded GAs wit h single-pointcrossover in overcoming t he barrier of the local peaks and converging to t heglobal bas in. However , it is premature to conclude whether real-coded GAswit h SBX op erator can overcome t he local barriers in higher-dimensionalblocked fun ct ions.These results are encour aging and suggest avenues for further research.Because the SBX ope rat or uses a probability distribut ion for choosing a childpo int , the real-coded GAs wit h SBX are one st ep ahead of the binary-codedGAs in te rms of ach ieving a convergence proof for GAs. With a direct probabilist ic relationship between children and parent points used in t his paper,cues from t he clas sical stochast ic optimization methods can be borrowed toachieve a convergence proof of GAs , or a much closer tie between the classicaloptimization methods and GAs is on t he horizon.
In short, according to the authors my SBX operator using real gene values is as good as older ones specially designed for discrete searches, and better in continuous searches. SBX as far as i know meanwhile is a standard general crossover operator.
But:
- there might be better ones out there i just havent seen yet. please tell me.
- besides tournament selection and mutation, crossover is just one part of the breeding pipeline. also there is the elite management for MOEA which is AT LEAST as important as the breeding itself.
- depending on the problem, there are almost always better specific ways of how to code the mutation and the crossover operators. but octopus is meant to keep it general for the moment - maybe there's a way for an interface to code those things yourself..!?
2) elite size = SPEA-2 archive size, yes. the rate depends on your convergence behaviour i would say. i usually start off with at least half the size of the population, but mostly the same size (as it is hard-coded in the new version, i just realize) is big enough.
4) the non-dominated front is always put into the archive first. if the archive size is exceeded, the least important individual (the significant strategy in SPEA-2) are truncated one by one until the size is reached. if it is smaller, the fittest dominated individuals are put into the elite. the latter happens in the beginning of the run, when the front wasn't discovered well yet.
3) yes it is. this is a custom implementation i figured out myself. however i'm close to have the HypE algorithm working in the new version, which natively has got the possibility to articulate perference relations on sets of solutions.
…
re are major changes and enhancements.
HONEYBEE
More Flexible Workflow - Many small modifications were made to support a more flexible workflow, such as the ability to separate a zone created with masses2Zones into editable HBSrfs that can be recombined. For the energy components, it is now possible to plug custom constructions directly into the components that set the zone constructions without writing them first into the library. For the daylighting components it is now possible to change all of the materials of specific surface types at once.
Support for Complex Geometry - Many small bugs for complex geometry have been fixed including the ability to import energy results correctly for curved NURBS surfaces as well as unconventional window configurations. Also, the intersectMasses component now almost always succeeds in splitting all of the surfaces of adjacent zones, no matter how complex the intersection is.
Automatic Download Issues Fixed - Many users who faced issues with not having “gendaymtx.exe” or who had trouble syncing with our github know that we faced an issue with automatic background downloads.
Air Walls - Honeybee EnergyPlus models now officially support air walls (or virtual partitions) in a basic implementation. Now, any time that you use the air wall construction or set a surface type to “air wall,” the air between adjacent zones will be automatically mixed. At present, this mixing is just a constant flow based on the surface area between zones connected by air walls multiplied by an adjustable “flow factor.” It is important to stress that this basic air mixing is not with the EnergyPlus Airflow Network, although the groundwork laid in this release will eventually allow for the implementation of the Airflow Network in future releases. As such, this present air mixing is only suitable for multi-zone conditions where there is not significant buoyancy-driven flow between zones.
Natural Ventilation - To go along with the new potential introduced by air walls, there has been a basic implementation of EnergyPlus’s natural ventilation objects in a new component called “Set EP Airflow”. The current setup allows for three possible types of natural ventilation: 1) natural ventilation through windows (with auto-calculated flow based on window area, outdoor wind speed/direction, and stack effects), 2) custom wind and stack objects that can be used to model things such as chimneys off of single zones, and 3) constant, fan-driven natural ventilation.
Additional Thermal Mass - The capability to add additional thermal mass to zones has been added. This is useful for factoring in the mass of indoor furniture or heavy interior objects such as chimneys.
New Utility Components - Abraham has added a couple of useful components to help calculate lighting loads based on bulb types and target lighting levels as well as a converter from ACH to the m3/s-m2 that the other HB components accept. Along this vein, there is also a component for adding in the resistance of Air Films to HB constructions.
Improved and Editable Ideal Air Loads System - The EnergyPlus Ideal Air System now goes through an automatic sizing period at the start of the simulation based on the extreme weeks of the weather file. Furthermore, the ability to adjust many of the parameters of the ideal air loads system have been added with a new “Set Ideal Air Loads Parameters” component. The component allows you to add in heat recovery, air side economizers and demand-controlled ventilation.
OpenStudio Export Update - The OpenStudio workflow is still largely under development but this release includes a version with a working VAV and PTHP system template for those curious with experimenting. Note that not all of the new features available for the basic “Run Energy Simulation” component are available for the OpenStudio component (such as air walls, natural ventilation, or additional thermal mass).
Microclimate/Indoor Comfort Maps - Blossoming from initial experiments with the radiant temperature map, a workflow for looking into sub-zone microclimate and indoor comfort has been initiated. All components for this are presently under the Honeybee WIP tab but, over the next month, they will be completing their development phase and moving into the rest of the tabs. If you are interested in testing when they are ready, please let Chris know. For a teaser video of the intended capabilities, see this video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNylb42FPIc&list=UUc6HWbF4UtdKdjbZ2tvwiCQ)
LADYBUG
Monthly Bar Chart - After much demand from multiple parties, a new component to create monthly bar and line charts has been added. The component is particularly useful for plotting the outputs of the “Average Data” component like monthly EPW data or averaged monthly-per hour data. It also supports daily data and any type of Energy simulation results.
Wind Profile - To go along with the new capabilities of natural ventilation in Honeybee, Ladybug now has a fully fleshed-out Wind Profile component that allows you to visualize how wind speed changes with height in relation to your building geometry. The component is geared to understanding the conditions of prevailing wind and will be useful in the future for setting up CFD models. Credit goes to Djordje Spasic for adding in all of the new capabilities. In a similar vein, the appearance of the wind rose has also been improved thanks to suggestions from Alejandra Menchaca.
Faster Solar Adjusted Temperature - Thanks to the SolarCal method from the Center for the Built Environment at UC Berkeley (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/89m1h2dg), the solar adjusted temperature component now includes an option for a much faster calculation that produces results that are very close to those originally obtained with the genCumSky component. Instead of using the cumulative sky, the component can now accept the direct and diffuse radiation from the ImportEPW component. Over a whole year, this essentially takes a calculation that used to be a half-hour and shrinks it down to 10 seconds. Thanks again to those at UC Berkeley for keeping their work open source!
Instructions - Last but not the least, [It took me almost two years to understand this but finally] we have a text file that describes the installation step by step and is way easier to modify than a video. You can find it in the zip file. Credit goes to Chris!
We also want to welcome Anton, Patrick and Sandeep to the team. Anton has kicked off his development by working on a component to import and visualize epw ground temperature data and he will be continuing to develop components to bring in reliable precipitation data to Ladybug. With this basis, he will continue to implement Honeybee components for ground heat storage, earth tubes, rain collection and hot water systems. Patrick and Sandeep are working on integration of Honeybee to Energy Performance Calculator.
As always let us know your comments and suggestions.
Enjoy!…
This blog post is a rough approximation of the lecture I gave at the AAG10 conference in Vienna on September 21st 2010. Naturally it will be quite a different experience as the medium is quite…
Added by David Rutten at 3:27pm on September 24, 2010
Analysis Tools (LAT). Our plugin has come a long way in the last 4 years and, while the legacy version will still include some small updates and contributions, we are confident in saying that the changes will be far fewer and the plugin more stable in the following months as we switch gears into the LAT effort. I can say personally that (save for a couple of small capabilities) I have made it through my list of critical features and I will hereafter be working on making these features cross-platform, cleanly-implemented, and well-documented in the new Ladybug Analysis Tools software package. As always, you can download the new release from Food4Rhino. Make sure to remove the older version of Ladybug and Honeybee and update your scripts.
The majority of changes with this release represent “icing on the cake” after a long, multi-year effort to connect to the major open source engines and datasets. So, without further adieu, here is the list of the new capabilities added with this release:
LADYBUG
Stereographic Sky Projections - Thanks to several code contributions from Byron Mardas, all Ladybug sky visualizations now support stereographic projections! Such projections are useful for understanding the hemispherical visualizations in a 2D format and they also make it easier to overlay different sky datasets on top of one another. Check here for an example file showing the sun path overlaid with helpful/harmful parts of the sky and see here for an example file using shading masks representing strategies (like an overhang) on top of the helpful / harmful portions of the sun path.
Wind Rose Upgrades - Devang Chauhan has added several new features to the Ladybug wind rose including both visual and numerical outputs of average wind velocity and frequency for each petal of the rose. Not only does this enhance the usefulness of the rose but it also paves the way for the use of the wind rose to set up CFD simulations once Butterfly is released in the near future. The new features of the wind rose can be seen in this hydra example file.
Complete Set of Local Thermal Discomfort Models - After the last release included components to evaluate radiant asymmetry discomfort (which can be modeled using these example files: 1, 2), today’s release completes Ladybug’s suite of local discomfort models from ASHRAE and the ISO by adding components to account for discomfort from cold draft. Specifically, two draft models have been added for different types of situations. The first is an older model published by P.O. Fanger, which was developed through experiments where subjects had cold air blown on the back of their neck (the most sensitive part of the body to draft). While this is useful for understanding a worst-case scenario, it can greatly overestimate the discomfort for cases of draft at ankle level - a more common occurrence that typically results from the tendency of cold air to sink. For this situation, a second draft discomfort model has been included, which is specifically meant to forecast ankle draft discomfort. The model is currently undergoing review for integration into ASHRAE-55 and a publication outlining the derivation of this model can be found here:
Liu, S., Schiavon, S., Kabanshi, A. and Nazaroff, W. (2016), Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied with Ankle Draft. Indoor Air. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/ina.12364 (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/9076254n).
Special thanks is due to Shichao Liu, Toby Cheung and Stefano Schiavon for sharing the model and the results of their study with the development team. The integration of draft models completes the full integration of ASHRAE-55 and EN-15251 with Ladybug. Now, you can rest assured that, if there is a certain thermal comfort standard that you need to fulfill for a given project, you can model it with the ‘bug!
Window-Based Draft Model - With the integration of draft models, the first question that one might ask is “how should these models be applied to typical design cases?” While the (soon-to-be-released) Butterfly plugin for OpenFOAM should open up a Pandora’s box of possible situations, this release of Ladybug includes a simplified downdraft model from cold vertical surfaces, which helps model several typical cases of draft discomfort. The model has been validated across several papers:
Heiselberg, P. (1994). Draught Risk From Cold Vertical Surfaces. Building and Environment, Vol 29, No. 3, 297-301
Manz, H. and Frank, T. (2003). Analysis of Thermal Comfort near Cold Vertical Surfaces by Means of Computational Fluid Dynamics. Indoor Built Environment. 13: 233-242
It has been built into the “Ladybug_Downdraft Velocity” component and has been included in an example file illustrating discomfort from cold windows in winter. The example is intended to show when glazing ratio and window U-Values are small enough to eliminate perimeter heating - a practice that is aesthetically unpleasing, costly to maintain and wasteful in its energy use.
Operative Temperature on the Psychrometric Chart - This is a feature that should have been added a long time ago but we are finally happy to say that the Ladybug_Psychrometric Chart can draw a comfort polygon assuming that the air temperature and radiant temperature are the same value (aka. an operative temperature psychrometric chart). This operative temperature chart is the format that is needed to use the ASHRAE-55 graphical method and is generally a better representation of the range of comfort in cases where one does not intend to hold the radiant temperature constant. This operative temperature capability is now set as the default on the component but you can, of course, still bring back the older comfort polygon by simply plugging in a value for meanRadiantTemperature_.
Contour Map Visualizations - Using the same inputs as the Ladybug_Recolor Mesh component, the new Ladybug_Contour Mesh component allows you to generate contoured color graphics from the results of any analysis. Now, you to maximize the use of your high-resolution studies with contours that highlight thresholds and gradients!
Image Texture Mapping for Colored Meshes - Antonello DiNunzio has added the very useful Ladybug_Texture Maker component, which allows you to bake Ladybug colored meshes with image texture maps (as opposed to the classic method that used colored vertices). This enables the creation of transparent Ladybug meshes, making it even easier to overlay Ladybug graphics with one another and with Rhino geometry:
This component also adds the ability to render Ladybug + Honeybee meshes with other rendering programs like V-Ray and 3ds Max. So you can produce Ladybug graphics like this!
Finally, image-mapped textures are also the format required for gaming and Virtual Reality software like Unity and Augmented Reality programs like Augment. So now you can export your Ladybug meshes all of the way to the virtual world!
Rhino Sun Component - If you have ever had to set up the sun for a rendering plugin and wished that you could just take your Ladybug sun and use that, then you are in luck! Byron Mardas has contributed a component that lets you set the Rhino sun based on your EPW location data, your north direction (if different from the Y-Axis) and any time of day that you want. Not only does this make it easier to coordinate the Rhino sun with your Ladybug visualizations, but you can also use it for real time shadow previews by setting your Rhino view to “Rendered” and scrolling through a slider.
Rendered Ladybug Animations - With both the image texture mapping and the Rhino sun components released, your first thought might be “it would be great if I could use this all in a rendered animation!” Thankfully, Ladybug has added a new component to help you here. The Ladybug_Render View component works in essentially the same way as the Capture View component, allowing you to make a series of images as you animate through a slider. The major benefit here is that it works with both Rhino Render and V-Ray so that animations like this can be produced effortlessly:
Cone of Vision Added - Antonello Di Nunzio has added a component that allows you to visualize various cones of vision in order to help inform your view studies. You can fine tune parameters to include just text-readable or full peripheral vision and use the resulting view cone to constrict the results of your “Ladybug_View Analysis” studies.
Terrain WIP Components Released as the Gismo Plugin - Our friend Djordje has released a new plugin Gismo - a plugin for GIS environmental analysis. As a result the following 5 terrain components: Horizon Angles, Flow Paths, Terrain Shading Mask, Terrain Generator 2, Terrain Analysis, have been removed from Ladybug+Honeybee's WIP section and are added to Gismo.
HONEYBEE
Search, Select, and Import the Hundreds Outputs from EnergyPlus/OpenStudio - Many of the power users in our community know that EnergyPlus is capable of writing several hundred different outputs from the simulation (well beyond what the basic Honeybee result readers can import). While Honeybee has always allowed one to request these outputs by adding them to the simulationOutputs_ of the component, there has not been an official workflow for searching through all of the possible outputs or importing their specific results… until now! We have added the "Honeybee_Read Result Dictionary" component, which allows you to parse the Result Data Dictionary (or .rrd file) that EnergyPlus outputs during every run of a given model. This allows you to see all of the outputs that are available for the model and you can even search through this list to find a particular output that you are interested in. Once you find what you are looking for, simply copy the text output from the component into a panel and and plug this into simulationOutputs_. Then you can use the "Honeybee_Read EP Custom Result" component to bring your custom results into GH after rerunning the simulation. The example file of an evaporative cooling tower shows how to use the workflow to request and import in the energy removed by the tower.
OpenStudio HVAC System Sizing Results - After the full integration of HVAC in the last release, we realized that a number of people wanted to run EnergyPlus models simply to evaluate the size of the Heating/Cooling system in the model (obtained from the EnergyPlus autosize calculation that is run at the start of every simulation). Such a sizing calculation can be a great way to quantify the anticipated savings from a given strategy (like shading) on the size/cost of the building’s HVAC system. To get the results of the sizing calculation, all that one needs to do is connect the output eioFile from the OpenStudio component to the Honeybee_Read HVAC Sizing component. The outputs will indicate the peak heating/cooling loads of each zone (in Watts) as well as the size of each piece of HVAC equipment in the model. The next time that you are on a project that is about to value-engineer out an exterior shading system, use the workflow in the following example file to show that the client will probably end up paying for it with a more expensive HVAC system: Quantifying HVAC Sizing Impact of Shade.
Improved Memory Usage When Building Large Energy Models - As we take the capabilities of Honeybee to larger and larger models, many of us have begun to run up against a particular limitation of our machines: memory. After upgrading our machines to have 32 GBs of RAM, there was only one way left to alleviate the problem: restructure some of the code. Honeybee now uses an enhanced approach that ensures all the previous iterations of Honeybee objects will be removed from the memory once there is a change. In any case, the considerations of memory are definitely something that we intend to improve with the future Honeybee[+] plugin.
Workflow to Import gbXML Files - While GrizzlyBear has been around for several years, enabling us to export Honeybee zones to gbXML, we have gone for quite some time without a workflow to import gbXML files to Honeybee. The new Honeybee_gbXML to Honeybee component addresses this and establishes an easier path to import models from Revit into honeybee. You can read more about the component in this post.
Window Frame Capabilities Added to OpenStudio - After the implementation of LBNL THERM / WINDOW capabilities in the last two releases, there was one final bridge to build in the Honeybee workflow - fully connecting LBNL WINDOW to Honeybee’s OpenStudio workflow. This release of Honeybee will now write all FrameAndDivider objects exported from LBNL WINDOW glazing systems into the energy simulation, enabling you to account for the frame’s thermal bridging effects. As long as the construction is brought in with the Honeybee_Import WINDOW IDF Report component, the frames associated with the construction will be assigned to all windows that have the construction. Finally, it is worth noting that the current Honeybee will also write all glass spectral data as well as gas (or gas mixture) materials into the simulation. This means that essentially all properties of any IDF export that one makes from LBNL WINDOW can be factored into the OpenStudio energy simulation (with the only exception being BSDF materials).
OpenStudio Daylight Sensors Added - In our previous releases of Honeybee, the only means of correctly account for daylight sensors in an energy simulation was to run an annual daylight simulation and use the resulting schedules for the lighting in the energy simulation. However, this can take a lot of time and work to set up and run, particularly if the daylight control (at the end of the day) will be driven by just one sensor per room. Now, we have added another option, which uses OpenStudio/EnergyPlus’s built-in daylight controls. You can assign just a point and an illuminance target on the “Set Zone Thresholds” component and the lighting will be automatically adjusted in the course of the simulation. It should also be noted that the addition of daylight sensors has also coincided with the addition of blind/shade control based on glare. The same sensor point for daylight can be used to drive dynamic shades in the energy simulation based on glare experienced at this point. This example file shows how to set up daylight controls on the EnergyPlus model and check the lighting power results to see the effect.
Better Defaults for Natural Ventilation - After many good people wrote to me informing me that Honeybee overestimates natural ventilation airflow and I wrote back showing the way that I intended natural ventilation to be set up with the component, it dawned on me that I had selected some poor component defaults. Accordingly, this release includes a window-based natural ventilation option on the Set EP Airflow component that corrects for some of the common issues that I have seen. Insect screens are included by default and the component runs a general check to see if wind-driven cross ventilation is possible before auto-assigning it. The component will air on the side of more-conservative, lower airflow rates unless the user overrides the defaults. Finally, it’s worth noting that all of these changes have not affected the freedom of the Custom WindAndStack option on the component. The new defaults can be viewed in this example file.
CFD Results Can be Plugged into Microclimate Maps - In preparation for the (very soon) release of the Butterfly that connects to the OpenFOAM CFD platform, we just wanted to note that all of the microclimate map recipes can now take an input of a csv file with a matrix of CFD results for wind speed. For the time being, we have used these to produce very high-accuracy, high resolution maps of outdoor comfort. There will be more to follow soon!
We should also note that, in the last release I mentioned that we would be phasing out the EnergyPlus component so that all efforts are focused on the OpenStudio component. While I reiterate that all of the features of the EnergyPlus component are available in the OpenStudio component and I encourage everyone to use the OpenStudio component in order to take advantage of its HVAC capabilities, I have come to realize that many prefer to use the EnergyPlus component out of habit and have not yet gotten the time to understand why the OpenStudio component is an improvement over the EnergyPlus component. As a result, we have decided to leave the EnergyPlus component in place for the time being so that everyone has more time to understand this. The future Ladybug Analysis Tools platform will only interact with EnergyPlus through OpenStudio and so it is recommended that everyone use these two components in the Honeybee plugin will serve as an educational resource to understand our current path moving forward with OpenStudio.
Lastly, it is with great pleasure that we welcome Devang Chauhan and Byron Mardas to the developer team! As mentioned previously Devang has contributed several updates to the Ladybug Wind Rose in addition to finding and solving a multitude of bugs in other components. Byron has contributed code that has enabled the previously-mentioned stereographic sky projections along with a better method for running the Ladybug Sky Mask. Finally, Byron has contributed the Rhino Sun component, which allows you to coordinate your Rhino renders with your Ladybug data. Welcome to the Ladybug team, gentlemen!
As always let us know your comments and suggestions. Cheers!
Ladybug Analysis Tools Development Team…
me of course!So I'll try to be as clear as possible.I have two problems.The form we have is a shade. I would like to close the shape of the top so she cancling to a bulb socket. For this, I want to keep a planar surface (the same surface asthe top of the basic shape without distortion but reduced (scale)), then connect themodified form (with the attractors points) to this surface. However, it must be dividethis surface on triangle to succeed have flat surface (because the shade is made of paper and then cut out of planar sheets).I managed to do it but very complicated and non-automatic by taking each point oneby one through lists items.Do you know a way to do it automatically and it still works even if we increase the number of facets of the form?I also have a problem with attractors points to 2 different places, to distort the basic shape and create the holes.
I could wish to create as many attractors points what I want in my program but it is limited.Do you think it is possible to group all attractors points in only component (point) to make this automatic?In my program, I have managed to use several (3) points attractors to distort the basic shape using dispatch order if I want attractors for example 24 points, I wouldcreate 24 pieces of program which is quite disturb!For holes, the problem IS exactly the same.Do you have any ideas? (If you have time).
Thanks a lot.Ines
…
nts for Ladybug too. They are based on PVWatts v1 online calculator, supporting crystalline silicon fixed tilt photovoltaics.
You can download them from here, or use the Update Ladbybug component instead. If you take the first option, after downloading check if .ghuser files are blocked (right click -> "Properties" and select "Unblock").
You can download the example files from here.
Video tutorials will follow in the coming period.
In the very essence these components help you answer the question: "How much energy can my roof, building facade, solar parking... generate if I would populate them with PV panels"?
They allow definition of different types of losses (snow, age, shading...) which may affect your PV system:
And can find its optimal tilt and orientation:
Or analyse its performance, energy value, consumption, emissions...
By Djordje Spasic and Jason Sensibaugh, with invaluable support of Dr. Frank Vignola, Dr. Jason M. Keith, Paul Gilman, Chris Mackey, Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari, Niraj Palsule, Joseph Cunningham and Christopher Weiss.
Thank you for reading, and hope you will enjoy using the components!
EDIT: From march 27 2017, Ladybug Photovoltaics components support thin-film modules as well.
References:
1) System losses:
PVWatts v5 Manual, Dobos, NREL, 2014
2) Sun postion equations by Michalsky (1988):
SAM Photovoltaic Model Technical Reference, Gilman, NREL, 2014
edited by Jason Sensibaugh
3) Angle of incidence for fixed arrays:
PVWatts Version 1 Technical Reference, Dobos, NREL, 2013
4) Plane-of-Array diffuse irradiance by Perez 1990 algorithm:
PVPMC Sandia National Laboratories
SAM Photovoltaic Model Technical Reference, Gilman, NREL, 2014
5) Sandia PV Array Performance Module Cover:
PVWatts Version 1 Technical Reference, Dobos, NREL, 2013
6) Sandia Thermal Model, Module Temperature and Cell Temperature Models:
Photovoltaic Array Performance Model, King, Boys, Kratochvill, Sandia National Laboratories, 2004
7) CEC Module Model: Maximum power voltage and Maximum power current from:
Exact analytical solutions of the parameters of real solar cells using Lambert W-function, Jain, Kapoor, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, V81 2004, P269–277
8) PVFORM version 3.3 adapted Module and Inverter Models:
PVWatts Version 1 Technical Reference, Dobos, NREL, 2013
9) Sunpath diagram shading:
Using sun path charts to estimate the effects of shading on PV arrays, Frank Vignola, University of Oregon, 2004
Instruction manual for the Solar Pathfinder, Solar Pathfinder TM, 2008
10) Tilt and orientation factor:
Application for Purchased Systems Oregon Department of Energy
solmetric.com
11) Photovoltaics performance metrics:
Solar PV system performance assessment guideline, Honda, Lechner, Raju, Tolich, Mokri, San Jose state university, 2012
CACHE Modules on Energy in the Curriculum Solar Energy, Keith, Palsule, Mississippi State University
Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) Version 2.0, Hammond, Jones, SERT University of Bath, 2011
The Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) of Photovoltaics: Methodology and Comparisons with Fossil Fuel Life Cycles, Raugei, Fullana-i-Palmer, Fthenakis, Elsevier Vol 45, Jun 2012
12) Calculating albedo: Metenorm 6 Handbook part II: Theory, Meteotest 2007
13) Magnetic declination:
Geomag 0.9.2015, Christopher Weiss…