Use ArchiCAD to Conduct a Sun Study

Feb 15, 2005 By:Kurt Ameringer Cadalyst

When creating sustainable design and green architecture, the ability to create a sun study for a specific project location is an important component. ArchiCAD has an impressive and easy-to-use tool that allows users to run an accurate sun study with automatic time intervals from any perspective in the model.

Exterior sun studies can show the shadow impact upon your site by surrounding buildings before you begin your design as well as how your project will influence the surrounding site once built. These studies can also define and verify your passive solar design long before you have the opportunity to build it.

In the interior of the virtual building, sun studies allow us to observe how far natural light penetrates inside during winter or summer. This can again define design for passive solar systems or lighting levels for office occupancy.

Creating a Sun Study
The Create Sun Study command allows you to generate an animation or series of 3D images rendered in ArchiCAD based on the selected render engine and the Sun position settings defined in your project. Your animation can be displayed immediately on the screen or saved in a number of file formats to be shown in the future.

All the rendered projections in a sun study are generated based on the current parallel projection or perspective view 3D Projection Settings dialog box (figure 1).

Figure 1. All the rendered projections in a sun study are generated based on the current parallel projection or perspective view set in the 3D Projection Settings dialog box.

You can also set the geographical data for the location of the model and Sun parameters in the Sun dialog box available by clicking the More Sun button in the Parallel Projection Settings (figure 2).

Figure 2. Specify a variety of location and date parameters in the Sun settings.

Clicking the More Sun button in either the Perspective Settings or Parallel Projection Settings dialog box gives access to the Sun subdialog box for a series of more sophisticated sunlight settings, which can be used for PhotoRenderings.

Characteristics of light can be set in the upper part of the Sun dialog box. Double-click the color box to go to the Edit Color subdialog box. The color of directional light can be set here.

• You can decide how much of the directional light is represented in nondirectional, ambient light.
• Both the color and intensity of directional light can affect the ambient light, according to the percentage specified in the Contribution to Ambient (%) field.

As opposed to directional light -- for example, the sun -- ambient light is nondirectional and can stand as a substitute for the rich reflected and interreflected light experienced in a real environment. It can brighten otherwise overshadowed surfaces. Ambient light may have its own color -- in a pink room for instance -- and its intensity may have to vary to obtain special effects in renderings.

• Its color is set through the Edit Color subdialog box. Double-click the sample color to open it.
• Its intensity can be set between 0 and 100%.

To further enhance the realism of your renderings, the atmospheric fog effect alters light in proportion to the distance from your viewpoint. You can set the color of the fog by double-clicking its sample box to access the Edit Color subdialog box. You can also set one of four levels of intensity for the effect using the radio buttons. (To achieve a typical misting effect, set the color to white, and this will fade the more distant objects. To use light decay, set the fog color to black, and this will darken the more distant objects.) Note: To apply this effect, make sure the Fog feature is activated in the PhotoRendering Settings dialog box.

For a real-time preview of your sun, ambient light and fog settings, select the Auto Preview checkbox. If you leave the box unchecked, you can still get a preview at any time by clicking the preview window.

Click the Set City button to specify a geographical location by latitude and longitude, or by specifying a major city close to your site from the scrollable list (figure 3).

Figure 3. Specify a geographical location for your sun study.

• To add a new location, type into the appropriate edit boxes its name, the exact global coordinates and the time zone of the site, then click the Add button. The new location now appears in its alphabetical position in the list.
• To delete a location, select the city name by clicking on it, then click the Clear button to remove the city from the list.

In the Sun subdialog box, you can specify the date and time of day (just below the Set City button). The +1h correction (summer time) check box lets you adjust for Daylight Savings Time.

As a result of all these specifications, you can get the exact direction readings of the sun, with an icon indicating if it is day or night.

The orientation of your floor plan is defined by setting the North direction relative to the floor plan's orientation on screen. You can drag the compass needle or type in the angle numerically, relative to the x-axis of your sheet.

If you define the sun position by defining a location with date and time, its azimuth settings will be calculated with respect to this orientation (where East is at 0.00 degrees). Note: When using surveyor's units (Preferences / Working Units), the North of the Coordinate Box will be the same as the one set here.

Once you have defined the view you wish to begin with, you may choose to Create Sun Study from the Image menu (figure 4).

Figure 4. Establishing settings in the Create Sun Study dialog box.

Beginning on the top left, choose to create the view from the 3D Window or the PhotoRendering Window. This choice determines the quality of the finished image and will render with the current settings of the selected window.

In the Date field you can define a particular day of the year for the geographical location previously set under the Sun options. You may select the month and type the day in the edit box or use the arrows to advance up or down.

Use the radio buttons in the middle left section of the dialog box to define the duration of the sun study from sunrise to sunset for the selected day or specify a portion of the day for the sun study.

Type a number in the Interval edit box or use the arrows to define the time between two frames in minute intervals. You may also choose to render all the frames of the sun study or a single or specific series of images.

In the Results section of this dialog box, you are able to define the type and quality of the output. Available options allow export to movie files, image files and export to external renders such as 3Dstudio or VRML files.

Once you have established the criteria for the rendering, simply click the Show button to have the sun study processed and immediately displayed on your screen. You may also click the Save button to save the sun study in the selected file format.

Once created, the sun study may be used to evaluate any aspects of the sun shadows as the day progresses (figure 5).

Figure 5. The completed sun study shows how light and shadow play on your design as the day progresses.

Although traditional sketches are helpful for design evaluation, they do not compare with the accuracy of the sun study capability built into ArchiCAD. It is simply easier to understand the shadow effects during the day when the Virtual Building Model is used.

Archicad Tutorials : Where Did I Put That Detail?

By:Kurt Ameringer Cadalyst

Have you ever received a phone call from the field asking which reference bubble in the document set is correct?

Graphisoft's ArchiCAD v9 expands the functionality of PlotMaker, its document layout, and management tool to offer additional automated options when creating documents. A few minutes spent with setting up at the beginning of a project can save hours of red-lining and changing reference call-outs throughout the lifecycle of a project.

By taking advantage of new features in PlotMaker, you can import a set of views from ArchiCAD's building information model (BIM), or Virtual Building, into a layout that will automatically number and arrange the views on a sheet. The titles of each sheet are based on settings specified in the Master Layout Settings dialog box.

CREATING A DRAWING NUMBERING GRID
The Drawing Numbering Grid is an extension of the Master Layout which was introduced in ArchiCAD v8. The Master Layout is a template that establishes the size of a sheet and references intelligent information on all the layouts assigned to it. Editing a Master Layout allows you to make one change in one location and have it update on every sheet in the drawing set.

PlotMaker includes several Master Layout templates that you can modify or reference to create new ones. When you open the Master Layout Settings dialog box, you should verify that the Grid for Drawing Numbering option is enabled; otherwise, the settings will not be available for editing. Check the "This Master Layout Should Use?" option near the top of the panel (figure 1). This enables all the controls on the panel.

Figure 1. Click the top checkbox in the Master Layout Settings dialog box to enable all the controls on the panel.

Select a radio button to specify a numbering method for the grid. The Matrix option (figure 2) will assign each cell a coordinate corresponding to its column and row numbers.

Figure 2. Select the Matrix numbering method if you want to number your grid based on the column, row location of each cell.

In the Numbering Direction and Style area, you may select numbers or letters from the pull-down menus for the horizontal and vertical series. You can also set directions for the horizontal (left-to-right or right-to-left) and the vertical (bottom-to-top or top-to-bottom) series. Once you establish the setup of columns and rows, you'll have a series of cells. The individual cells can be formatted using Drawing Number Format.

Using the Flat numbering method (figure 3), you can number each cell consecutively from a corner of the grid. All your sheets can be coordinated by selecting one of the four corners of the layout to "Start Numbering From". You can also specify numbering or lettering in the Style field.

Figure 3. Select the Flat numbering method to number each cell consecutively from a corner of the grid.

The remaining controls in the panel are general settings that apply to the Grid regardless of the numbering method. The Number of Cells can be defined using both the text fields and arrow controls.You can specify a line type and a pen color for the grid lines using the Grid Line Type settings (figure 4). In the Grid Line Display pull-down list, you can choose how the grid lines are shown on the layout. These Grid Line Display settings also affect printed output.

Figure 4. Use the options at the bottom of the Master Layout Settings dialog box to specify how you want your grid lines to appear on screen and in printed output.

Some drawings will occupy space in more than one cell. You can define which cell number should be assigned as the drawing number by choosing one of the drawing's four corners in the "Drawings Occupying Multiple Cells ?" pull-down list (figure 5).

Figure 5. Use the pull-down list at the bottom of the Master Layout Settings dialog box to specify how to number drawings that occupy multiple cells.

Drawings, views, and image files placed onto this layout will be centered into the cells of the grid, and each drawing will number itself according to the grid settings. If you choose to manually relocate the drawing to another cell, it will renumber itself automatically. If the drawing is too large to fit in one cell, it will insert itself into as many cells as needed and then automatically number itself based on the rules you have set.

Once the rules are established, you can use them for any combination of projects. Views imported directly from ArchiCAD or drawings from any other supported file format are automatically organized onto your sheet and can be edited to suit your office standards. Any changes to the attached views or master sheet populate the entire document set, updating your documents as often as you like. The drawing set of individual sheets can then be automatically published -- plotted, printed, saved, and uploaded -- to any selected format or supported device.

CREATING A PDF FILE
Publishing to a PDF allows you to create a single document that contains and automatically coordinates all the selected sheets (figure 6). Every section, elevation, and detail bubble in the PDF is hyperlinked to the correct detail so you will never go searching for that detail again.

Figure 6. Create a PDF file to combine all your selected sheets and every section, elevation, and detail bubble it contains will be hyperlinked.

ArchiCAD Insights: Energize Your Practice

By:Viktor Bullain Cadalyst

In previous columns (click here for archives), we have discussed how the Virtual Building can help you create a better coordinated documentation set faster, allowing the architect to focus on the design rather than the documentation process. In today's highly competitive environment, clients require more than just drawings as deliverables. Many clients demand a full Virtual Building model in order to award a project. Others may demand energy analysis in the conceptual phase, making it nearly impossible to implement in current traditional design methods. ArchiCAD offers an easy and effective way to expand your services and meet these new client requirements.

Focus on Energy Efficiency
Energy consumption is rapidly growing while energy prices are on the rise. The state of the economy is affecting almost every company and family in the United States. The federal government requires LEED silver certification for new structures built by the government. By the end of the year, the State of California will require advanced technologies to reduce energy consumption.

ArchiCAD works with several energy analysis tools. This article highlights how ArchiCAD works directly with Green Building Studio to help improve energy efficiency. The Green Building Studio Web service provides reasonable, highly accurate energy use estimates for your ArchiCAD building designs. Green Building Studio can be applied at the very early stages of design. Applying energy efficiency solutions at the beginning of your design cycle helps save time. Green Building Studio provides an integral part of the design process.

Application in Action
To get started with this free service, log on and register. Create a new project name for your design. Green Building Studio enables you to organize your building energy analysis projects effectively. It also enables other project members to have access to the results from these analyses.

Preparing the Building Model for Energy Analysis
The energy analysis calculations depend on detailed building information, including number of spaces, construction and geometry of the surfaces bounding the spaces and the openings in the surfaces. All this data is automatically extracted from your ArchiCAD project model by the GBS Energy add-on.

Room and Building Zones. The Zone polygons illustrate where the add-on believes the rooms and building perimeter to be. To correct errors you can:

• Adjust the room perimeters by modifying the Zone polygon
• Delete zones where rooms do not exist
• Add new zones where rooms have been missed

The add-on recognizes a zone as a GBS room or building by the stamp. A GBS room will have a zone stamp called GBS Zone and a building will have a stamp called GBS Building Zone.

Energy Analysis with the Virtual Building
To run the Green Building Studio from within ArchiCAD you must enable the Web service and information transfer using green building XML, called gbXML for short. There are gbXML add-ons available for ArchiCAD 8.0, 8.1, and 9.0 on both the Mac and Windows platforms.

Step 1. To get started, select Login from the GBS Energy menu.

Step 2. Enter your GBS User name and password and click the Login button. You can also specify that the add-on remember your login by checking the Remember checkbox.

Getting Energy Results
Step 3. Select the Perform Energy Analysis menu item under the GBS Energy menu.

Step 4. In the Project Details frame select the GBS project you want to associate with this ArchiCAD plan, select the project building type by selecting the best representation in the Type list, enter a unique run name and specify the Zip code of this building's location. The building type and Zip code enables Green Building Studio to select the appropriate standards and information for the engineering analysis.

Step 5. In the Analysis Settings frame you can specify to recalculate the rooms to have the add-on automatically add zones to your plan. If any of your building is under grade, change the Project Zero Elevation and an estimated Average Ground Level value. If you want the add-on to automatically add slabs between floors, check that box. If you also want to save the gbXML file that is created by the add-on, check that box.

Step 6. If you specified the add-on to recalculate zones on the previous screen or selected the Calculate Room Positions menu item, you will see the following window. Ensure that the values entered are realistic. Click OK.

Energy Analysis Results
If everything with your model is correct, a browser window will open that is similar to the one below, presenting you with the status of your Green Building Studio energy analysis.

The Green Building Studio energy engineering results pages provide highly accurate, yet simple summarized information on building energy performance and costs that can be used immediately to compare the relative energy costs of building design scenarios at the early conceptual design stage. The following is a guide to interpreting the results.

General Information. The General Building information section at the top of the page describes the project scenario, building type, geographic location and gross floor area.

Estimated Energy & Cost Summary. Most building energy cost comparisons and early compliance decisions can be made using annualized energy cost and consumption information. Costs are estimated using local utilities rates. The following information is provided:

• Annual Energy Cost
• Lifecycle Energy Costs (30 year)
• Annual Energy Consumption (electric and gas)
• Peak Electric Energy Demand (kW)
• Lifecycle Energy Consumption (electric and gas)

Energy End-Use Charts. Further breakdowns of energy use for major electric and gas end uses, such as lighting, HVAC and space heating, are provided in graphical format. Numbers associated with each category can be seen by clicking on the pie charts.

Building Summary. Detailed statistics and information on building constructions are also provided. This information allows the building designer to get an early assessment of code compliance and rough estimates of equipment sizing requirements for heating, cooling and water heating, as well as window, wall and floor area breakdowns.

Happy Client, Repeat Customer
Once your company embraces this change, the process becomes second nature and improves your firm's marketability. The building will be optimized for the best performance possible.

Exceeding your clients' expectations makes them happy and helps build a lasting relationship. It's time to change.