ack to .ghx?
This is in relation to a discussion I've been having with David Rutten & Scott Davidson about GH consuming memory in a relatively large GH definition (~. I think what I've learned from this is that one should limit the size of the GH file, or put some incremental stops in the definition to limit the length of calculations that it runs at once. Is this a valid conclusion?
The GH file we're talking about is 7Mb & the Rhino file is about 120Mb, but when working w/ the GH def. I try to only keep about 2 curves turned on.
Here's a summary of the discussion:
Hi Mike,thanks for sending it over. I've been fiddling with the file for about 10 minutes and it climbed from 1.7 GB to 1.9GB, but then I've been switching previews on which means more meshes get calculated so you'd expect a higher memory consumption. It is possible we're leaking memory, but if you're working for hours on end, memory fragmentation might also explain part of the increase. Basically, memory gets fragmented just like disks get fragmented after prolonged use, difference is that memory cannot be defragmented unless you restart the application and allow it to start with a clean slate. I'll try and find any leaks we may have missed in the past.Goodwill,David
──────────── David Rutten
On 09/03/2011 06:19, Mike Calvino wrote:
Thanks very much David for the quick response. I've attached the files zipped. I can't figure out what's doing it. After working in the file for awhile, the memory usage in the Windows Task Manager climbs . . . it's gotten to 1.57+Gb before I exited GH & Rhino5Wip & let it dissipate, then restart & work for awhile before it does it again. It probably takes like 4 or 5 hours before it gets that high. That's the highest it's gotten, & that only happened while I was working in a Rhino file that had all of the elements baked into it - turned off at least, but it still climbed to 1.57+Gb. It seems to climbs when you work in the file & move around in both the GH def. & the Rhino file. Like turn on a few of the Extr components at the right end of the "StandareRibExtuder" groups, you can watch the MemUsage go up, but when you turn them off, it does not go down. - goes up fast at this point. Maybe I need to figure out how to do the definition with fewer components, I'm sure that's part of it, but I must confess, I think I'm still early on in the learning curve.I really hope that this is not operator error on my part & I do apologize up front if it is. I have done a disk cleanup, I have tried excluding .3dm & .ghx files from my NOD32 antivirus, no change. I hope you can find something.Let me know if you have any trouble with the files.See if you find anything & please let me know . . . thanks!Cheers! --Mike CalvinoCalvino Architecture Studio, inc.www.calvinodesign.com
…
de modelación en 3D y aprovechen las ventajas que plantean, como mejorar su proceso de diseño y explorar múltiples alternativas para un proyecto en lapsos de tiempo muy reducidos en comparación de los métodos tradicionales.
En consecuencia, los alumnos tendrán la posibilidad de disminuir sus tiempos de trabajo, con resultados iguales o incluso mejores a los que obtenían con anterioridad; mejorar la calidad de sus presentaciones y, lo que es más importante, ampliar la fundamentación de sus proyectos en el aspecto funcional y formal, dependiendo de las características del proyecto.
Para lograr estos objetivos, se contemplan dos temarios y un ejercicio práctico.
Al finalizar el curso, los asistentes serán capaces de manejar Rhinoceros y Grasshopper en un nivel medio, con el objetivo que el alumno pueda continuar aprendiendo con alguno de nuestros siguientes workshops o de manera autodidacta.
Además del contenido teórico se incluye un ejercicio práctico, la magnitud del ejercicio y el material que se le destine se definirán con base en el número de asistentes.
El workshop tiene una duración de cinco sesiones:
Sesión 1 – Temario de Rhinoceros
Sesión 2 y 3 – Temario de Grasshopper
Sesión 4 y 5 – Ejercicio práctico
El horario es de 9 am a 4 pm, con una hora de receso para tomar un refrigerio.
No es necesario traer el equipo necesario para trabajar, se cuenta con un equipo para cada persona asi como el material de trabajo para el ejercicio práctico, por lo cual se les recomienda que no traigan portátiles u otro material, únicamente dispositivos de almacenamiento si desean guardar sus trabajos.
El costo del evento es de $3,500 estudiantes y $4,000 profesionales.
(Para poder tener el descuento de estudiante es necesaria una constancia de la universidad de la que proviene, acreditando que el interesado está cursando algún semestre de la carrera. Personas graduadas que estén cursando una maestría o algún grado superior no reciben el descuento).
Para apartar su lugar pueden realizar un depósito de $1,500 y terminar de efectuar el pago antes del 15 de abril si es mediante un depósito bancario o el primer día del evento en efectivo.
El evento se realizará en las oficinas de Vegasot, ubicadas en Circuito Cirujanos No. 23-A
Cd. Satélite, Naucalpan, Edo. de México 53100
http://www.vegasoft.com.mx
Para cualquier duda por favor escriban un correo a luzytextura@gmail.com, por teléfono al 044 55 4381 3302, o en facebook.com/archbernardorivera…
east make all our algorithms thread-safe, so they can all be called from multiple threads, this is the first step towards multi-threading.
But multi-threading is not just something you switch on or off, it's an approach. Let's take the meshing of Breps for example. Let's assume that at some point one or more breps are added to the document. The wireframes of these breps can be drawn immediately, but the shading meshes need to be calculated first. How do we go about doing this? Allow me to enumerate some obvious solutions:
We put everything on hold and compute all meshes, one at a time. Then, when we're done we'll yield control back to the Rhino window so that key presses and mouse events can once again be processed. This is the simplest of all solutions and also the worst from the users point of view.
We allow the views to be redrawn, mouse events and key presses to be handled, but we perform the meshing in a background thread. I.e. whatever processor cycles are left over from regular use are now put to work on computing meshes. Once we're done computing these meshes we can start drawing the shaded breps. This is a lot better as it doesn't block the UI, but it also means that for a while (potentially a very long time) our breps will not be shaded in the viewport. This approach is already a lot harder from a programming perspective because you now have multiple threads all with access to the same Breps in memory and you need to make sure that they don't start to perform conflicting operations. Rhino already does this (and has been doing for a long time) on a lot of commands, otherwise you wouldn't be able to abort meshing/intersections/booleans etc. with an Escape press.
So we can compute the meshes on the UI-thread or on a background thread. How about using our multiple cores to speed up the process? Again, there are several ways in which this can be achieved:
Say we have a quad-core machine, i.e. four processors at our disposal. We could choose to assign the meshing of the first brep to the first processor, the second brep to the second processor, the third brep to the third processor and so on. Once a processor is done with the meshing of a specific brep, we'll give it the next brep to mesh until we're done meshing all the breps. This is a good solution when multiple breps need to be meshed at once, but it doesn't help at all if we only need to compute the mesh for a single brep, which is of course a very common case in Rhino.
To go a level deeper, we need to start adding multi-threading to the mesher itself. Let's say that the mesher is set up in such a way that it will assign each face of the brep to a new core, then -once all faces have been meshed- it will stitch together the partial meshes into a single large mesh. Now we've sped up the meshing of breps with multiple faces, but not individual surfaces.
We can of course go deeper still. Perhaps there is some operation that is repeated over and over during the meshing of a single face. We could also choose to multi-thread this operation, thus speeding up the meshing of all surfaces and breps.
All of the above approaches are possible, some are very difficult, some are actually not possible if we're not allowed to break the SDK. A further problem is that there's overhead involved with multi-threading. Very few operations will actually become 4 times faster if you distribute the work across 4 cores. Often one core will simply take longer than the other 3, often the partial results need to be aggregated which takes additional cycles and/or memory. What this means is that if you were to apply all of the above methods (multi-thread the meshing of individual faces, multi-thread the meshing of breps with multiple faces and multi-thread the meshing of multiple breps) you're probably worse off than you were before.
--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia
* an example would be the z-sorting of objects in viewport prior to repainting, which is a step performed on every redraw as far as I know.…
make quad mesh usable with Kangaroo and with limited inputs parameters in order to simulate funicular structures like "Vaulted Willow" or "Pleated Inflation" from Marc Fornes and the Verymany.
Here is a first attempt script.
As inputs there are :
Lines_in, just lines, no duplicates, on XY plane could have Z values, but the algorithm works on a , on XY plane could have Z values, but the algorithm works on a flat representation.
Tolerance is used to glue lines when points are closer than tolerance
Width is the half width of the “roads” going through the network
Angle is the shape of the ends of the roads, 0° means flat end, 180° a totally rounded end
Deviation is the shift generating spikes or enabling to generate pleated geometry
N_u is the number of subdivision along the “roads”, image above with 3 subdivisions on the roads
N_u is the number of subdivision across the “roads”
Zbool if false everything is flat, if true the mesh is in 3d, best with angle = 180° or -180°
For the outputs there is the topology of the network (like Sandbox)
As outputs geometry are put on datatree, each branch represent a path on the road, above 3 paths, which are brep output.
Adding a diagonal there are now 4 paths so 4 branches
The mesh M goes with F which are fixed points, anchor in Kangaroo.
U and V are lines in datatree, there will be used as spring in Kangaroo, U above
This script could be used to draw sort of roads, like in here https://codequotidien.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/hemfunction/
But the primary purpose is to do that.
…
greatly appreciate it!!
You can write the number of the question and write your answer next to it, example:
1) a
2) c
3) a) Washington University in St. Louis
4) 2 weeks (1week+1week shipping)
5) 130
6) b
7) b
The survey questions are as follows:
1)
Did you 3D print before?
5)
How much did it cost (in dollars)?
a.
Yes, for a school project
a.
Between 20 & 50
b.
Yes, for a personal project
b.
Between 50 & 80
c.
Between 80 & 120
2)
Print size
d.
Please specify if otherwise: _____ dollars
a.
Between 2 & 6 cubic inches
b.
Between 6 & 12 cubic inches
6)
Do you think the price was expensive?
c.
Between 12 & 20 cubic inches
a.
Not at all
d.
Please specify if otherwise: ____cubic inches
b.
A little bit expensive
c.
Very expensive
3)
Where did you print your object?
a.
School
7)
Were you satisfied with the printed object?
b.
Outside school: _________________
a.
Yes, it was a great print without problems
b.
Not bad, some issues
4)
How long did it take to print?
c.
I was not satisfied, very bad quality
a.
___ days
b.
___ weeks
Thank you very much to all!!
PS: If you did many 3D prints, you can post multiple answers.
Wassef…
ate 2 lists (nList, fList) as reference, and produce this fnList <List of List of On3dPoints> - when I output the resulting Object, it gives me the Object Type, not the value and therefore unusable. Please see image for the output. In the code below, I think the only lines one would need to evaluate is the bold lines.
Am I getting confused with referencing or something?
Thanks in advance,
kat
Private Sub RunScript(ByVal wPt As List(Of On3dPoint), ByRef NodeList As Object, ByRef FacetList As Object, ByRef FacetNodeList As Object) Dim xlApp As Object Dim i As Integer ' override language Dim oldCI As System.Globalization.CultureInfo = system.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = New System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US") 'Grab a running instance of Excel xlApp = System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.GetActiveObject("Excel.Application") Dim wb As Object = xlApp.ActiveWorkbook 'Dim sheet As Object = wb.ActiveSheet Dim xlshNode As Object = wb.Sheets("Nodes") Dim xlshFacet As Object = wb.Sheets("Facet Table") Dim nList As New List(Of On3dPoint) Dim fList As New List(Of On3dPoint) Dim fnList As New List(Of List(Of On3dPoint)) Dim rowBegin As Integer = 3 Dim col_name As Integer = 1 Dim col_1 As Integer = 2 Dim col_2 As Integer = 3 Dim col_3 As Integer = 4 If Not IsNothing(xlshNode) Then nList = readIntoPoints(xlshNode, rowBegin, col_1, col_2, col_3) NodeList = nList End If If Not IsNothing(xlshFacet) Then fList = readIntoPoints(xlshFacet, rowBegin, col_1, col_2, col_3) FacetList = fList End If If Not IsNothing(nList) And Not IsNothing(fList) Then For i = 0 To fList.Count - 1 Dim pt1Name As Double = fList(i).x Dim pt2Name As Double = fList(i).y Dim pt3Name As Double = fList(i).z Print("pt1Name : " + CStr(pt1Name)) Print("pt2Name : " + CStr(pt2Name)) Print("pt3Name : " + CStr(pt3Name)) Dim ptList As New List(Of On3dPoint) Dim ptOne As On3dPoint = nList(CInt(pt1Name) - 1) Dim ptTwo As On3dPoint = nList(CInt(pt2Name) - 1) Dim ptThree As On3dPoint = nList(CInt(pt3Name) - 1)
ptList.Add(ptOne) ptList.Add(ptTwo) ptList.Add(ptThree) Print(" ptList : " + ptList.ToString) fnList.Add(ptList) Next FacetNodeList = fnList End If End Sub…
the pipe component .I have one curve ,but Pipe component outputs two pipes .This guide curve have two kinks . Pipe component fails at one of them .
Bug #3
I guess this bug may have been fixed .
Wish #1
I hope adding an "reverse list" option to the right-click menu .I think this would be useful (at least for myself).
Wish #2
I hope the SimplifyTree component would clear the zeros located at the end and middle of branch in condition the branches have same length.For example, I have a tree looks like :
A = {0;1;0} B = {0;1;0;1}
C = {0;1;0;0;1;0;0;0}
After simplify ,I get:
A = {1} B = {1;0;1}
C = {1;0;0;1}
And if the tree structure is something like:
A={0;0;1;0}
B={0;0;1;1}
C={0;0;1;2}
After simplify ,I get:
A={1;0}
B={1;1}
C={1;2}
But If the tree is:
A={0;0;0;0;0;0}
B={0;0;1;0;1;0}
C={0;0;1;0;2;0}
I get:
A={0;0}
B={1;1}
C={1;2}
WIsh #3
I came across conditions that there is no direct way to handle some Datatree matching problems . And now I think I find what's the problem :GH now lack the capability to make cross reference between lists/branches .For example, I have two trees ,the first one have two branches {0}&{1}, the other have three branches{0}&{1}&{2}.Now GH would do:
what I want is :
If this can come true ,I can say it would be very very very useful . I just have a coarse idea on how to do that: Like () wrap items,{} wrap branches, then [] wrap trees .
Say I have a tree [0] ,which have three brabches{0},{1},{2}. So [0]=[{0};{1};{2}] or [0]=[{0},{1},{2}]
If this is ruled, the following fomula is meanningful:
[0]=[{0}] (this means tree[0] just have one branch)
[0]=[{0;0;0};{0;0;1};{0;0;2}]
[0]=[{0;0};{0;1};{0;2}]=[{0;0;0};{0;0;1};{0;1};{0;2}]After that, Maybe we could match [{0};{1}] and [{0};{1};{2}] very easily (Longest List;Shortest List;Cross Reference) ??
I tried to explain the concept of "tree" to my friends ,but I am confuzed somewhere myself .For example ,how could we have a tree including branches {0},{0;0}and{0;0;0} at the same time??{0} should be the biggest tree trunk,and {0;0} is part of {0} .{0;0;0} is just the smallest trunk and store the least data inside .How could the biggert trucks are empty while only the smallest branches contain items ?(David drawed a datatree that tell this,remember??)
But if this idea is acceptable ,then I could make a fairy tale about tree to them :
(Long long ago...)
[0] is a tree ,[1] is a tree.
{0},{1},{0;0}.{0;1;0} are branches.
{0}=(0,1,2,3,4,5) is branch.
[0]= [{0;0;0};{0;0;1};{0;0;2] is a standard tree .
[0]=[{0;0;0};{0;0;2};{0;0;3] is a pruned tree.
[{0};{0;0};{0;0;0}] is an illegal tree .
Gh is lenient enough to allow the existence of illegal tree .
Gh is lenient enough to allow the existence of empty trees& empty branch&null items.
We can use PathMapper to transform an illegal tree into a legal one and vice versa . We can use PathMapper to do any things to tree&branch&item.
Wish #4
wish for Split List component : it would have a wrap option just like many other components.In this way , we can split a list of data at -1 .I think this would be useful .
wish #5
wish for a Preview toggle component .See picture below (it's fake).
this toggle look mostly like the boolean toggle, but it have a input param by which we can control the preview logically and smartly .
When there is no input ,we can control swith the preview with a double click action .This toggle component could control all gh geometry overriding the global setting .The link curve between toggle and target works just like the galapagos.
Wish #6
Wish for adding arc angle output to both Arc 3pt and Arc SED components.This would make things easier sometimes .
Wish #7
Many times I were puzzled that a same gh script would perform perfect if the input is single surface but buggy while the input is more than one surface .After debuging many times ,I just found that if one or two component of the script do things smarter ,this kind of bugs would never happen again !! Simply saying:we need a optional datatree match behavior. Say I have two datatree [{0;0};{0;1}] and [{0;0;0};{0;0;1};{0;0;2};{0;0;3};
{0;1;0};{0;1;1};{0;1;2};{0;1;3}] Normally {0;0} matchs {0;0;0},{0;1} matchs other branches (Longest List behavior).Now I need {0;0} matchs {0;0;0},{0;0;1},{0;0;2},{0;0;3} separately and {0;1} matchs {0;1;0};{0;1;1};{0;1;2};{0;1;3} separately .I cant describe this matching rules accurately but it's very obvious .I hope you can understand the meaning .
I remember David said once that he would not change anything about the datatree matching rules in order to avoid destroy people's production work .And that is my bottomline too .What I want is when I need one component to match the input datatree in this way ,I can switch it (just it ) into this mode (Assuming these is a "xxx mode" option in component's right-click menu ). In this way ,All the exist Gh def would not be destoryed.
PS. I am not carping but I found the DivideKink param input of Divide Curve component is useless except adding a segments output .
…
he "return" is comment out as shown below?
After restarting Rhino and Grasshopper, I opened the outdoors_airflow demo file, and the first step of creating the case file is ok:
Then the blockMesh component gives the following error: seems I have to manually start OF first..
so, as the error message suggested, I open OF by Start_OF.bat:
Then come back to the blockMesh component, now it can be executed while the OF command line window is also openning:
... and the blockMesh finished successfully:
... so I proceeded to run snappyHexMesh, checkMesh and update fvScheme:
... up to the simpleFoam component, I got the error again:
The warning message is:
1. Solution exception: --> OpenFOAM command Failed!#0 Foam::error::printStack(Foam::Ostream&) in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #1 Foam::sigFpe::sigHandler(int) in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #2 ? in "/lib64/libc.so.6" #3 double Foam::sumProd<double>(Foam::UList<double> const&, Foam::UList<double> const&) in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #4 Foam::PCG::solve(Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double> const&, unsigned char) const in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #5 Foam::GAMGSolver::solveCoarsestLevel(Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double> const&) const in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #6 Foam::GAMGSolver::Vcycle(Foam::PtrList<Foam::lduMatrix::smoother> const&, Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double> const&, Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::PtrList<Foam::Field<double> >&, Foam::PtrList<Foam::Field<double> >&, unsigned char) const in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #7 Foam::GAMGSolver::solve(Foam::Field<double>&, Foam::Field<double> const&, unsigned char) const in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libOpenFOAM.so" #8 Foam::fvMatrix<double>::solveSegregated(Foam::dictionary const&) in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/lib/libfiniteVolume.so" #9 Foam::fvMatrix<double>::solve(Foam::dictionary const&) in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/simpleFoam" #10 Foam::fvMatrix<double>::solve() in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/simpleFoam" #11 ? in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/simpleFoam" #12 __libc_start_main in "/lib64/libc.so.6" #13 ? in "/opt/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-v1606+/platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/simpleFoam"
... and the command lines in the readMe! output are pretty long and it is saved in the text file attached here.
So, my questions are:
1. why I have to manually start OF first before I can use the blockMesh component? Should butterfly automatically start OF?
2. what might be the cause of the unsuccessful run of simpleFoam in the end?
Hope you can kindly advise! Thank you!
- Ji
…
is our fault that it fell through the cracks.
To answer your questions:
1. With the current capabilities in Honeybee, there are three possible ways by which air enters a zone and each has its own separate set of inputs. These three are:
1) Infiltration
2) Ventilation through the HVAC System
3) Natural Ventilation
The reason for having these three separate set of inputs is because each of these has a separate reason for why the air is entering the zone:
1) Infiltration - This is air flow into the zone through cracks in the walls that you cannot control.
2) Ventilation through the HVAC System - This is additional ventilation that you do to ensure that occupants have enough fresh air to breathe and that smells do not accumulate. Note that ventilation through the mechanical system can only happen if the zone is conditioned so, if you wanted to adequate minimum ventilation in a completely passive zone, you have you use the third option below (or boost up your infiltration to an acceptable level).
3) Natural Ventilation - This is ventilation, usually at high volumes, that you are doing to cool down the zone in place of using mechanical cooling.
You can set the first two (infiltration and ventilation through the mechanical system) with the 'Set EnergyPlus Zone Loads' component. For the case that you describe, you should not add the two together but input them like so:
I am assuming that the minimum ventilation to ensure occupants have enough fresh air is 0.5, in which case, you don't need to add the two but can subtract the infiltration from the mechanical ventilation. I have included Abraham's awesome converter components from ACH to m3/s-m2, which should make things easier in your case. For natural ventilation, you have to use the "Set EP Airflow" component.
2. Oh gosh, I did not realize that I had said that in the videos. As you have stated, you are absolutely right that you want to leave a bit of room between your heating setpoint and your minTemperatureForNatVent. I know that there currently is not a video on the Set EP Airflow and I will make this clear when I put up a video on it soon. I should also probably take out the example of an infiltration schedule from the videos too since I know that was the best the components could offer in terms of air flow at the time. I usually leave at least 2 C between my heating setpoint and the minimum temperature for natural ventilation (usually my heating setp is 20C and nat vent setpoint is somewhere between 22-26C depending on how tightly controlled temperature needs to be in the space). This is the case, unless I am crafting some special type of summertime night flushing scheme where I will use the HVACAvailabilty input on the 'Set EnergyPlus Zone Schedules' to shut down the heating system for part of the year. To clarify again what happened in your case, setting the minTempForNatVent to the heating setpoint will mean that windows immediately open once the heating setpoint is reached, causing the heating system to immediately turn back on after it has just been turned off. Over time, you have this rapid oscillation between heating and opening windows that just blows through a ton of energy.
3. You cannot use the 'Set Ideal Air Loads Parameters' to account for a COP. By definition an ideal air system does not include a COP (ideal air is the type of HVAC system that the 'Run Energy Simulation' component uses). Ideal air systems can only tell you the heat removed or added to the zone by the system - NOT the values of electricity or fuel that it might take to add or remove this heat. If you want to obtain a rough estimate of your heating and cooling with those COPs you can post-process the results using the native grasshopper division component like so:
We did not include a formal Honeybee component to perform this division operation because we want you to be aware of what is going on. This division gives you a rough estimate of the energy but it is not as accurate as modelling a complete HVAC system. We are currently building out the capability to do this with the OpenStudio component. I have attached a file with the native GH division for you.
4. Looking at your file, it makes sense that the constructions in general would not change the simulation much since you only have a single side of the box that is not adiabatic. However, I imagine that the bigger reason why the simulation is not changing much is that the constructions I see that you are using have poor R-values for the heating-dominated climate that you are working in. Try just making a no-mass material and boost up the R-value to a high amount (maybe something crazy like 15) and you will see the maximum cutting of heating energy you can get by making a thick envelope.
Sorry again that no one got back to you in a good time frame but I also realize this discussion took a long response. In the future, it might be better to break this up into a few discussions with more focused topics. That way, the people who know the individual topics you brig up can get back to you individually much faster.
-Chris…