[Radiance-daysim] gen_dc completes, but shows zero values at all sesnor points

Kerger Truesdell kergertruesdell at gmail.com
Tue May 9 07:08:39 PDT 2017


Hi all,

Thank you in advance for any input you can share.

PROBLEM:
I cannot generate daylight coefficients using gen_dc. The program *does *seem
to complete successfully, creating the following files in the process:
- direct_radiance_file.tmp.rad
- skyPatches.rad
- static_system.dif.dc
- static_system.dir.dc
- DC.dc

Curiously, the .dc files show zero for every sensor point! It's as if rays
were traced from the sensors and found no light.

This would make sense in a closed box, but my geometry has a large
south-facing window (I'm confident in the geometry definition, the
materials definition, and the sky model).

CONSIDERATIONS / EXCEPTIONS
There were three occurrences where I DID manage to generate daylight
coefficients:
1. When I removed the roof. Oddly, this returned direct daylight
coefficients but not diffuse coefficients. I would expect to have seen
direct and sky diffuse represented, possibly even ground diffuse.
2. When I changed the roof material to glass. This, too, only returned
direct coefficients.
3. When I changed my limit reflections parameter (-lr) to >/= 1. This
returned both direct and diffuse coefficients.

BEST GUESS
At this point, my best guess is that rtrace_dc is somehow failing as a
result of my -lr setting (i.e. when it's set below 1). Is that possible, or
would I receive an error message?

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Windows 10 (Intel Core i7-4600U CPU, 8GB RAM)
Daysim 4.0 is installed
Radiance is also installed on my machine
PATH and RAYPATH are properly setup

Thank you again for any input you can provide!

#####################
# project information
#####################
project_name Project
project_directory C:\Desktop\genDCtest\
tmp_directory C:\Desktop\genDCtest\tmp\
bin_directory C:\DAYSIM\bin\

##################
# site information
##################
place Default
latitude 38.1074198
longitude 122.56970319999999
time_zone 120.0
site_elevation 120.0
ground_reflectance 0.2
wea_data_file weather.wea
wea_data_file_units 1
first_weekday 1
time_step 60
wea_data_short_file weather.wea
wea_data_short_file_units 1
lower_direct_threshold 2
lower_diffuse_threshold 2
output_units 2

######################
# building information
######################
material_file material.rad
geometry_file geometry.rad
sensor_file points.pts
shading 1
static_system \res\DC.dc \res\ILL.ill
daylight_factor \res\DF.df
viewpoint_file no_DGP_view_file_provided
DC_file_format Daysim_original

#####################
# RADIANCE parameters
#####################
ab 0
ad 256
as 256
ar 32
aa 0.25
lr 0
st 1.0
sj 0.7
lw 0.05
dj 0.7
ds 0.0
dr 0
dp 32
dc 0.0
pt 0.15
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-daysim/attachments/20170509/5ddda4df/attachment.html>


More information about the Radiance-daysim mailing list