Rethinking the Computer Enhanced Design Process

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Modelling in Ecotect

• Three types of entity
• Zones
• Objects
• Nodes

• Zones are made up of objects.
• Objects are made up of nodes.

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Zones

• Zones may be used in different ways
• For shadow and lighting analysis, zones may be
  used in much the same way as layers and levels in
  other CAD tools.
• For thermal analysis, a zone must define a
  single enclosed homogeneous volume of air.

• For thermal analysis, there are four important
  types of zones
• Outside zone
• Thermal zones
• Non-thermal zones
• Current zone

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Four important types of zones

• Outside zone
• automatically created within the model
• cannot be removed or renamed
• has a ground plane
• should be used to store external objects such as
  fences, trees and site boundaries
• Thermal Zone
• assumed to be an enclosed space within the
  building
• all exposed surfaces on a thermal zone will
  contribute fabric and solar gains to the enclosed
  space

• Non-thermal zones
• are not considered in temperature or heat load
  calculations
• will provide shade for and reflect onto objects
  in other zones
• Current zone
• the zone to which any newly added objects will
  belong

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Surface normals

• In Ecotect, each surface has a front side and a
  back side.
• The front side is indicated by the surface normal.

• Surfaces that enclose a thermal zone must have
  all the surface normals pointing out.

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Zone properties
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Zone properties

• Zones have general properties and thermal
  properties (only used for thermal zones)
• General properties consist of
• Zone name
• Zone settings (Colour, Display on/off, Thermal,
  Locked)
• Zone volume
• Shadow display

• Thermal properties consist of
• HVAC system
• Operation
• Comfort band
• Occupancy
• Heat gains
• Air changes

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Objects

• All objects have a defined set of properties,
  including
• Element type the type of object (e.g. wall,
  floor, window, etc)
• Material the materials of the object
• Zone the zone to which the object belongs.

• Additional properties are grouped as follows
• Geometry
• Extrusion Vector
• Activation
• Orientation
• Modelling Flags
• Shadow Flags
• Analysis Flags

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Object properties Geometry

• Links links to other related objects
• Surface area the area of surfaces such as walls
• Exposed area the area exposed to the outside
• Nodes the number of nodes in the object
• AdjChildren area of doors and windows in
  adjacent surfaces
• AdjGround area of ground adjacent to surface

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Object properties Geometry
AdjChildren
Nodes
Exposed Area
Surface Area
AdjGround
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Object properties Activation

• Activation times are used to switch between the
  primary and alternate materials assigned to the
  object
• Allows objects to be dynamically assigned active
  and inactive
• This only applies to
• windows, voids, sources and appliances.
• For example, a heater.

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Element types main surfaces

• Zones are defined using four types of surfaces.
  These can be of any shape, have any number of
  nodes, and be at any angle
• Roof - the top boundary of a zone
• Ceiling - the top boundary of a zone (similar
  to roof elements)
• Wall - the perimeter boundary of a zone
• Floor - the lower boundary of a zone
• - used to determine the floor area of the zone

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Element types things inside a zone

• The are three things that can be placed inside
  spaces that affect lighting and thermal
  simulations
• Partition - has no external exposure
• - represent internal geometry, columns,
  furniture, etc.
• - adds thermal mass to a space
• Light - sources emitting light within a space
• - cannot be set to emit heat! (?)
• - can be set to use electricity
• Appliance - a piece of equipment within a zone
• - can be set to emit heat
• - can be set to use resources such as fuels,
  electricity and water

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Element types holes in surfaces

• There are three types of apertures, all of which
  can be children of walls, ceilings, roofs, and
  floors
• Void - a simple hole with nothing in it
• Window - a transparent material
• Door - for entering and exiting zones

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Element types other

• Panel - opaque area of a different material (for
  acoustics)
• Point - used in lighting calculations as
  sensors within the model
• Speaker - sources emitting sound within a space
  (for acoustics)
• Solar collector - e.g. photovoltaic arrays and
  solar heating systems
• Camera - viewing positions within the model
• Line - cables, construction lines or distance
  markers

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Materials

• Two materials can be assigned to each object
• Primary material
• Alternate material

Primary material
Alternate material
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Materials

• Each material in the material library is assigned
  an element type.
• Each object in the model is also assigned an
  element type.
• Normally, when you assign a material to a model,
  the element types will match.

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Materials
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Materials

• It is possible to assign a material of a
  different element type to that of its assigned
  object.
• This is only possible when both types of element
  have the same thermal data as each other.

• For example, you may want to assign the same
  alternate material to a ceiling object as is
  assigned to the floor of the adjacent zone
  immediately above.

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Inter-Zonal Adjacencies

• Inter-Zonal Adjacencies dialog controls the
  calculation of overlapping surfaces between zones
  and overshadowing tables for exposed surfaces.
• Prior to thermal calculations, ECOTECT needs to
  generate adjacency and shading table files for
  the model.
• The calculation of adjacencies is only necessary
  when the geometry has changed.

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Inter-Zonal Adjacencies

• Surface Point Sampling Grid Size
• - the distance between sample points within each
  object tested for adjacency and overshadowing
• Surface Adjacency Tolerance
• - controls the distance over which two similarly
  oriented surfaces will be considered adjacent.
• Use Each Object's Alternate Material Thickness
• - sets the inter-zonal adjacency tolerance to the
  width of each surface's Alternate Material
  assignment.

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Inter-Zonal Adjacencies
Adjacency tolerance
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Links between objects

• Links consist of a parent-child relationship. One
  object is the parent, and another is the child.
• Objects are linked for two reasons
• Convenience links As a way of making modelling
  easier. These links do not affect the lighting or
  thermal simulation.
• Apeture links Creating openings (voids, doors
  and windows) in surfaces. These links are
  important for lighting and thermal calculations.

• Links are shown in the information panel.

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Links between objects
object
child
parent
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Automatically generated links

• When certain objects are created with Ecotect
  modelling tools, relationships with other objects
  are automatically established.
• For example
• When a window is placed in a wall, they are
  automatically linked.
• When a zone is created with teh Zone tool, the
  walls and ceiling are linked to the floor.

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Restrictions on nodes

• The nodes of linked objects must obey certain
  restrictions.
• For example, the nodes of a window
• must be co-planar with the wall
• must be inside the wall surface
• If the new position violates any of the nodal
  restrictions, it will either not move into that
  position, or the entire object will turn red to
  indicate that a relationship violation has
  occurred.

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Linking and Unlinking

• Objects can be manually linked and unlinked at
  any time.
• If an aperture element (void, window or door) is
  not linked to a wall, then there will be no hole!

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Additional help

• More information modelling can be found in
• Help How do I
• Help Important concepts
• Help Modelling
• Tutorials Modelling Fundamentals
• Tutorials Advanced Modelling

• On the website