Archive for category Architecture

BIMing openings in the historical buildings: first try

Parametric opening with per instance adjustable inset depth, left and right tapers both on the inside and outside.

Formulas for Daylight Factor calculation

In architecture, a Daylight Factor (DF) is the ratio of the light level inside a structure to the light level outside the structure. The only problem – you must know both the illumination level on the inside, on the working plane and simultaneous outdoor illuminance on a horizontal plane from a unobstructed hemisphere of overcast sky.

A Daylight factor can be expressed as an average, using experimental formulas. Here are some of them:

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What is the size of a letter box?

The EN 13724:2002 “Postal services – Apertures of private letter boxes and letter plates – Requirements and test methods”, European standard for letterboxes specify that:

  • an envelope of C4 (229 mm × 324 mm) size must be deliverable without bending or damage;
  • the internal volume must able to hold at least a 40 mm high bundle of envelopes;
  • the height of an aperture is 30–35 mm;
  • the width of the aperture is either 230–280 mm (for C4 width) or 325–400 mm (for C4 height);
  • the mounting height of the aperture should be between 0,7 and 1,7 m.

Hacking LSS Chronolux

The “required insolation’ sector is added to support in-model decision on the limiting volumes and conditions.

This is not a public software, so please contact the author of the LSS Arch Tools for more questions.

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Small problem with CFD simulations

Just a tiny hole in the mesh may create a great mess.

The initial wind speed is 10 m/s, laminar aiflow. And the result is small F15+ class tornado int he Fujita scale.

On the door handiness in Autodesk Revit

I was working on semi – automated solution to enter door handiness in Revit models. The existing solutions are either quite expensive (like Reforma Swing Direction) or has weird assumptions.

My intial setup is Dynamo and the Dynamo Door Set Handing module from http://archi-lab.net/. It has fine tutorials, so you only need to create your model in Dynamo.

The weird thing on door handines is it is different in some countries.

  • Door handiness in Germany is defined as hinge position on the door, when one is pulling the door to open. if the hinges are on the left side, the door is left-handed, and if the hinges are on the right side, the door is right-handed. I will refer it ad “DIN – style”.
  • The IFC, together with ISO 16739 defines door handiness as the position of “positive Y axis”, which is definitelly the position of door handle when puling.  I will refer it as “ISO – style”.
  • Americans use ISO style, but also has “reversed” option. I still have no idea on this option, as “reversed right” is “left”.

So, what’s to do?

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Revit and IronPython: the early bird

ODS module does not work on IronPython, and i don’t know the way to add Revit modules to regular Python.Whatever …

''' cut-n-paste from the net
 @author: ejs
 '''
 import clr
 import sys
 clr.AddReference('RevitAPI')
 clr.AddReference('RevitAPIUI')
 from Autodesk.Revit.DB import *
 from Autodesk.Revit.DB.Architecture import *
 from Autodesk.Revit.DB.Analysis import *
 
 #sys.path.append(r'C:\Python\3.4\Lib\site-packages')
 
 #from odslib import ODS
 
 #ods = ODS()
 
 uidoc = __revit__.ActiveUIDocument
 doc = __revit__.ActiveUIDocument.Document
 
 cView = uidoc.ActiveView
 
 collector = FilteredElementCollector(doc)
 collector = FilteredElementCollector(doc).OfClass(ViewSchedule);
 
elems=collector.ToElements()
 n_elems=len(elems)
 
 for elem in elems:
     if cView.Id == elem.Id: Read the rest of this entry »

Case story: move the location of Revit Server 2012 models

Here is the other issue: due to the fast install of Revit Server 2012, the location of model was not important. After the server’s role was changed to “Central” instead of ‘Caching”, i wanted model be stored in more predictable location.

Again, I had no wish to reinstall the whole server, including w2008r2 server.
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Case story: change role of Revit Server 2012 without reinstall

Our company was running a caching Revit Server 2012 instance, to be able to work on a project. The central server was set in the kingdom of far away and was serving three architectural offices.
Recently we had to take care of the model created and the Revit Server 2012 instance itself. I hate to touch working system, but i had to.
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Where is my free space, windows, where is my free space?

I had a strong wish to install Autodesk Revit 2013 just a days ago. Besides it needs 38 GB of free space, it did not fit on my clogged 100 GB system drive.
Too bad. Ok, my drive is oldish 160 GB Seagate, but still, windows7 seems like a disc hog.

So i’ve decide to investigate the case. Using RidNac, i made a small tour to the HDD space. Read the rest of this entry »