How to use E+ View3D tool

view3d
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energyplus
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Hi all,

Does anyone have a lead on how to use the View3D tool?

I´m trying to go around the non-convex limitations for Energyplus interior solar distribution, but the user manual that comes along is not very clear about how to use it nor how to input large models on the excel Interface.

I´ve seen the example file that comes with Energyplus, with the Zoneproperty:UserViewFactors:bySurfaceName which is exactly what I´m after.

There is another Radiance tool, adduvf.exe, that seems to do a similar job. Does anyone know if this is the case?

Thanks, Rafael

UPDATE:if anyone is interested in this topic, please upvote 👍 the new feature request on GitHub: https://github.com/NREL/EnergyPlus/is...

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rafael.alonso

asked 2019-12-13 05:29:52 -0500, updated 2020-01-17 09:47:40 -0500

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I guess I can claim to be the northern hemisphere maintainer of View3D. There are several sources for documentation of View3D. It's a bit scattered these days as I haven't had time to pull everything I've got into one location, and what comes with E+ is a little light.

There's a short LaTeX user manual here: manual. This provides the basics on using the program. There used to be an HTML version, getting that back up is item #1 is the list of things to do.
More technical information on what View3D does is covered in a NIST report: NISTIR 6925

Using the program in the context of E+ requires exporting your geometry into View3D's input format, running the program, then converting the results into IDF/epJSON form. You may be able to use the Excel interface to do that, but keep in mind that you'll need to do this on a per-zone basis. Item #2 on the list of things to do is to script that up. Since E+ is starting to add scripts to do this sort of thing, if you add an issue on the E+ repo requesting View3D import/export scripts, there's a possibility that I (or someone else) can get funded to do it. Otherwise, it comes down to whether I have the free time to do it.

Item #3 on the list of things to do is to unify the 3 or 4 GitHub repos (it's a long story) into one.

Update:Here's a link to the PDF version of the manual: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fP1...

2.2k

Jason DeGraw

answered 2019-12-13 09:15:46 -0500, updated 2019-12-13 09:22:18 -0500

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That´s great help already, thank you.

I´ll dive on all those ressources before posting back. It feels this tool is somehow a bit left in a drawer, and it´s really useful.

Of course, I´ll open that issue on Git.

rafael.alonso (2019-12-13 14:03:10 -0500) edit

If anyone is interested in following up, I suppose it would help if the new feature request gets some upvotes on Github.

https://github.com/NREL/EnergyPlus/is...

rafael.alonso (2020-01-17 08:48:48 -0500) edit

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Have you seen the E+ documentation on the View3D program? See the Auxiliary Programs documentation, specifically the section called "View Factor Calculation Program".