[Radiance-general] Radout

[Hind Dirani]

Thanks for all who helped me!

Cheers :)
Hind





> Hi!
>
> First, I would recommend dxf2rad, not torad or radout.
>
> Second, modelers ar great, but often lack precision you need for
> building models. You do not need nurbs for most architectural
> simulation, but good precision. That is why I mentioned formz, maybe
> Rhino offers the same. Blender is not made for this (but good for
> conversion and such, as it supports quite a lot of formats and
> geometry functions).
>
> I had mentioned the option to use brlcad for one simple reason.
> Autocad is popular, but a horror for people who want to keep their
> project data in standard formats. They change format support from
> version to version and keep the dwg format closed and it's development
> unpredictable. Keeping only the geometry (obj) is not a good solution.
> So I have been looking for options to link Radiance to open and
> standardized formats. IGES is one, STEP another. A lot of Cad software
> supports these. And as brlcad can convert them into obj on the command-
> line, it is possible to keep all geometry in such Cad formats and
> convert on the fly. I think for people who want to access their
> projects 10 years later a great advantage, and the only reason I
> mention it here.
>
> About texteditors, it depends on the project. A lot of simulation
> models require little detail, but high precision. And using genbox and
> Co not only avoids leaks, but makes sure that you control surface
> normal orientation. But it all depends on needed complexity of
> geometry and on what you want to do with yor model.
>
> Cheers, Lars.
>
> --
> Dipl.-Ing. Architect Lars O. Grobe
>
> On Aug 6, 2010, at 23:21, Jack de Valpine <jedev at visarc.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would agree with Christopher on Rhino and Sketchup. Blender does
>> export obj also and does seem to be a robust application, although
>> my main experience with it has been testing it to process obj
>> geometry.
>>
>> I think the challenge is figuring out a suitable workflow for those
>> who need to use Autocad for whatever reason.... However the
>> traditional options (TORAD and RADOUT) are pretty ancient at this
>> point and have the following problems:
>>
>>   * TORAD - if I recall correctly this still only deals with surface
>>     geometry which is fine if you know how to model this way...
>>   * RADOUT - same issue as TORAD with respect to geometry and the last
>>     version of Autocad that it could run in was Autocad 2000
>>
>> For me I think that the most suitable intermediate geometry format
>> is OBJ. It is open and there are lots of applications that can read
>> and write the format. The challenge is figuring out how to get from
>> Autocad to OBJ.
>>
>> -Jack
>>
>> --
>> # Jack de Valpine
>> # president
>> #
>> # visarc incorporated
>> # http://www.visarc.com
>> #
>> # channeling technology for superior design and construction
>>
>>
>>
>> Christopher Rush wrote:
>>> If you want to stick with AutoCAD, have you tried TORAD.lsp that
>>> has been posted (with modification as required for your version)?
>>>
>>> My 2 cents on other options...
>>>
>>> I would comment that Rhino and Sketchup both produce good OBJ files
>>> that can be converted with obj2rad. You will have to start paying
>>> attention to material assignments (instead of or in addition to
>>> layers that you would have been used to in AutoCAD). Rhino is
>>> probably more expensive, but handles curved geometry much better,
>>> and has a more flexible command line interface similar to AutoCAD.
>>> Sketchup focuses on being more intuitive, but can be limited in
>>> some ways like coordinate entry. Sketchup has the su2rad plugin,
>>> and Rhino now has DIVA for additional options to get models into
>>> Radiance based simulations.
>>>
>>> Lars has suggested FormZ, which seems comparable to Rhino but maybe
>>> less popular.
>>>
>>> There is also Blender, which is an open source software similar to
>>> 3DSMax. It claims to export to OBJ, so may be a good try for a free
>>> test before putting money into another modeling package.
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