greenspaceLive Blog Building Simulation on the Cloud

Out now and online, the newest gModeller V2.1 to start your Building Performance Simulation!

V2.1 has greatly improved performance particulary on MacOS.

Easy to use based on Sketchup. Go straight to other CAD software with these file formats:

• gbXML – global energy analysis tools
• idf – for the global standard EnergyPlus.
• nct – for UK SBEM and Energy Performance Certificates.

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At this years Consultancy and Engineering Awards, Rapiere won the prestigious Collaboration Champion of the Year award, fighting off competition from the likes of Network Rail, Crossrail, Arcadis, Jacobs and Apple Inc.

– Richard Newman, CEO, Rapiere Software Ltd

Rapiere Software Ltd is a company consisting of four founder partners; GreenspaceLive, Architype, ChapmanBDSP and Sweett Group. Together we have developed a web-based building simulation platform, that will save construction practitioners time and asset owners money by running multiple building simulation scenarios of cost, carbon and energy to optimise the sustainability of the design.

“Rapiere is a great example of organisations working together across an industry to develop a product that will deliver a real benefit to the creators of our built environment”

– Richard Hill, Director of Cost Consultancy, Sweett Group

For more information about Rapiere Software Ltd, please click here.

Are you aware that it’s even easier to make gbXML and IDF models with gModeller with our automated texture and spacing functionality?

Once you’ve built your model, you can easily automatically apply your surfaces by clicking “Auto Apply Surfaces” shown below.

Once this has completed, you can review your model and, if any incorrect surfaces have been applied, overwrite them with the correct surface.

You can space your model automatically by clicking the “Auto Apply Spaces” button shown below.

This will space your model using our latest spacing technology. Count the rooms against your space count, you should find that they are both equal!

If you make changes to your model, you can update the model without resurfacing and respacing! Simply use the “Sync Geometry” button below!

If you have any queries or problems, contact GreenspaceLive via our webpage.

Quick Start Guide: gEnergy

Hello and welcome to the gEnergy Quick Start guide. This guide assumes you already have existing EnergyPlus knowledge and is designed to get you familiar with the basics of gEnergy to allow you to start simulating your own buildings and projects as soon as possible.

Visit gEnergy and log in using your greenspaceLive account details

Create a new project – call this “Quick Start” or “Getting Started”

Click “Import IDF” from the options at the top of the gEnergy screen. Select ‘Bessemer Grange School’ from the dropdown menu. You can also choose your own IDF files to upload to gEnergy from here. Don’t worry about file versions, gEnergy will automatically make your IDF compatible with the latest version of EnergyPlus that is required. Once you’ve chosen your file, click Upload File.

At this point, you can make any changes you wish to make to the model, if desired. To do this, click a ‘Group’ on the left, this will open the group’s objects in the Object window. To edit an Object’s properties, simply left click the object in the Object list and edit it in the EnergyPlus Object Form located at the bottom right.

However, for this quick demonstration, you want to just click “Run Simulation”. The message console will appear and start running the gEnergy simulation. You can view your simulations progress in this window.

When this is completed, click on Reporting: Charts.

Here are some default charts displayed. You can add your own charts from the results by pressing “Add Chart” and then selecting your parameters from the list and moving them to the right. You can export any of your charts as a CSV file for Microsoft Excel by pressing “Download CSV”. You can also view your data as an HTML web file, detailing information from your simulation. You can view this by pressing “Reporting: HTML”

Congratulations!

You now know the basics of gEnergy, why not add your own IDF and try it for yourself?

For more information visit www.greenspacelive.com or email info@greenspacelive.com

gEnergy features an extensive and extensible library of pre-populated building objects. Select and drop library objects into a model to begin using them.

Using library files allows you to quickly populate models with pre-built information. This can be standards based, or come from component manufacturers.

Library items can also be used as templates and modified according to project requirements, as a productivity gain.

Adding from libraries is easy in gEnergy!

You can learn more about gEnergy’s features here.

Or why not start a free trial here and experience the power of gEnergy today.

Our gEnergy testing is well underway, and we’re happy to see people using it extensively!

We’ve added some new features and improved some existing ones since our beta launch, see below for details!

[Beta] gEnergy 1.0 PT Updates – August 19th

• Multi Select and Editing of Objects – the ability to edit multiple objects at the same time. This is a big productivity booster for larger models with lots of similar objects (e.g., walls, etc).
• WebGL 3D view of building geometry – very fast in modern browsers. Also, downscales to normal non-WebGL 3D view for older or mobile browsers.
• Highlights areas of the 3D model being edited, e.g., Zones, Surfaces, etc.
• Upload custom weather files
• Graphical Node graph view for editing systems, and identifying connections
• Dashboard based charting – add as many as you want, to make up custom reports
• Editable charts – choose what outputs are displayed on each individual chart.
• Drag and Drop schedule editor – edit schedules using a popup calendar where you can drag and drop days and values. Also chart based editing.
• Energy Plus console – view energy plus output as its running, useful for debugging.
• Export EnergyPlus raw output for downstream analysis.
• Ability to edit every single object in EnergyPlus – not just restricted to buildings.

Is gEnergy missing a feature you want to see? Let us know!

We use Google Web Toolkit a lot at GreenspaceLive. Supports an amazing amount of detail in the browser – some of which you will be seeing soon!