IES Blog

One of the key challenges facing today’s building designers is understanding and tackling how to incorporate sustainable design principles into existing workflows and processes.

A ‘good design is sustainable design’ ethos promoted by quantitative analysis can make a great impact.  Architects get quick environmental feedback on design iterations and environmental engineers can input more into the design.  Achieving this kind of effective collaboration and cross-discipline understanding, in my opinion is core to achieving truly sustainable, energy-efficient building design.

The advent of BIM (Building Information Modeling), and better integration between analysis and design tools, is helping push this more integrated, information sharing approach to design team working.  In particular, the Green Building XML schema, referred to as “gbXML”, was developed to facilitate information transfer from building information models to design/energy performance analysis tools.

We’ve working hard at IES to drive such integration by developing plug-ins that link our tiered suite of analysis tools to Revit Architecture, Revit MEP and Google SketchUp so users can build their designs in Revit or SketchUp and then easily translate and analyze  them in an iterative fashion.  gbXML was used to streamline the data flow from Revit to the IES <Virtual Environment> in the IES VE Revit Plug-in.

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Tags:Autodesk, daylighting, gbXML, LEED, plug-in, reduce, Revit, sketchup

I’ve got a workflow conundrum for you today:

I’m using SketchUp or Revit and I’ve delved into the Full <Virtual Environment> made some changes to the Templates in the Full <Virtual Environment>. I’m happy with the analysis. I now want to go back to the original model in SketchUp or Revit and want to change (for example) some geometrical detail. When I go to set room or building properties I don’t get the detailed choices I get in the <Virtual Environment> so when I get to the <Virtual Environment> I’ll need to start all over and re-apply all the room data, Right??

Luckily No!

There is a feature in the full <Virtual Environment> that’s been around for a few years now called Model Merge. Specifically it’s a feature within ModelIT and allows the merging of IES Template and Room data from a previously saved model.

It’s important to follow the correct steps to avoid heartache so I have produced a flow chart and a worked example of how to approach this. I’ve used SketchUp but the approach is the same in Revit. Attached are the models too. This is a great tool that avoids repetitive input of data!

Workflow Summary:

• Create Model in SketchUp  

• Make template changes in <Virtual Environment> 

• SAVE AS!!!

• Edit model in SketchUp: 

• Open in <Virtual Environment> 

  
• Merge Model Data (Apply Original model template data onto New model)
• Continue Analyzing from where you left off.

For more details you can download a powerpoint here

Thanks

Craig

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Tags:hints and tips, model merge, Revit, sketchup

Hi there,

The FT today posted a map of CO2 emissions on their website. It gives a geographical and US state-by-state snapshot of carbon dioxide emissions and a timeline of major events in climate change negotiations. Really interesting to look at the per capita figures, there are certainly some of us on this earth using much more energy than others…and they are not always as you’d expect them to be particularly in Europe.

This map inspired a quick search in the office for other similar initiatives – here are some of what we found the most inspiring. Breathing Earth gives CO2 emissions and country birth and death rates in real-time. While, the following two links are related to Project Vulcan, which is funded by Nasa and the US Department of Energy and run out of Purdue University, Indiana. There is a YouTube video which shows emission patterns over one day as industry and traffic wakes up, and reveals regional patterns of CO2 distribution. And, a static map that looks a US CO2 emissions per capita by region.

Really makes you stop and think about how as one person you are part of a really big issue, and that actually everything we do has an impact – eye opening but empowering at the same time!

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Tags:CO2 emissions, YouTube

Welcome to very exciting times here at IES. Our new link to Google SketchUp, we think, is a real game changer and means there’re no longer any barriers for considering energy performance and the Architecture 2030 Challenge right from the very earliest stages of design.

However, you can read all about the benefits of the plug-in on our new dedicated web section.  What I really wanted to point you all in the direction of is the example models that we’ve placed on Google 3D Warehouse. You can use these models to test and learn how to use the SketchUp plug-in.  Find them on the Google 3D Warehouse site by searching for IESVE.

We’ve developed these to show good practice for creating SketchUp models for the purpose of analysis, and show examples of different building types and sizes.  They demonstrate why enclosed volumes, which are required to generate rooms that will be used in the analysis, are so important, and much more…

I would suggest you take the models as a starting point and have a go at varying shape, form, massing, room layout or properties and maybe also try seeing the effect of surrounding buildings or shading devices.  Our associated How To… and User Guide should help you along the way.  Check out, how we have:

• used opacity to describe walls and fenestration
• set building properties
• located the building
• set the orientation using (Get View) from Google Earth

Happy Green Building…

Craig

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Tags:3D Warehouse, Architecture 2030 Challenge, hints and tips, sketchup