[Radiance-general] Leveraging the Python language in Building Performance Simulation

[Thomas Bleicher]

Marcus

You can find some advanced scripts on Francesco's web site:

http://www.bozzograo.net/radiance/index.php?module=Downloads&func=view&cid=2&start=0

These are complete scripts that create new features on top of the Radiance
tool set. If you don't mind digging a bit you can look for the b/rad script
on his web site. It is a Radiance exporter for the 3D modeller Blender
(outdated though, won't work with the current Blender version). This
exporter has also a lot of import features and so the scripts modules show
how to read Radiance files.

As far as an "official" Radiance Python module goes there was some
discussion about it quite a while ago but that pretty much was it. I wrote
(or re-wrote) the base image class for wxfalsecolor specifically to allow a
reuse in other scripts but I don't think anyone has ever used it. I think
one of the reasons is that with Radiance even trivial scripting can go a
long way in terms of automation. Most scripts will be written quick and
dirty and don't need big complicated wrappers to serve their purpose.
Radiance encourages this because it's composed of numerous command line
tools, each with a simple task.

I don't know too much about EnergyPlus and the options to use it on the
command line. Perhaps there is not much to do about the actual calculation
part of the process and the automation comes in when the input is created
or the output is processed. In both cases a parser library for the file
formats used by EP would come in quite handy.

Regards,
Thomas




On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:10 AM, info info <info at pythonpoweredbuilding.com>wrote:

> Hi Aksel,
>
> There is indeed interest in the Radiance community (I'm speaking as a
> voyeur, not a Radiance expert), see i.e.;
> https://sites.google.com/site/tbleicher/radiance/python-radiance
> http://code.google.com/p/pyrat/
> Etc.
>
> I would love to have a Radiance script as a demo of how flexible Python
> is, maybe there is some smallish task that we can tackle?
>
> When I use Radiance, I see the input files, and all I can think of is;
> this should be XML... Maybe there is interest in a 2-way parser?
>
> As far as a more complete "wrapper" project is concerned, we would be
> happy to also support in any way.
>
> -Marcus
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 1:40 PM, Aksel Groß <aksel at gobo.io> wrote:
>
>> I am a big fan of Python myself, and wrote a few simple scripts for me to
>> use with radiance. I am no programmer, so can encourage and support any
>> designer to take a look at the Python language, it's quite fun!
>>
>> Btw, would be interested: are there professional Radiance modules for
>> Python out there already? I once googled for them but without success.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Aksel Groß
>> aksel at gobo.io
>>
>>
>> Am 03.12.2012 um 12:57 schrieb info info <info at pythonpoweredbuilding.com
>> >:
>>
>> > Dear simulation community,
>> >
>> > The Python programming language is well known as a powerful tool in
>> automation, scripting, and high performance scientific computing. In our
>> experience, countless hours have been saved in automating building
>> simulation tasks, allowing us to focus more on creating quality building
>> models and accurate performance results.
>> >
>> > We believe that Python is positioned to make a big difference in the
>> building simulation community. To get started, we have the following offer:
>> Send us your scripting problems, and we will solve them for you!
>> >
>> > In this phase, we are interested most in small well defined tasks.
>> Example problems would be;
>> >
>> > "In my research, I need to parametrize 100 EnergyPlus files with
>> different U-Values"
>> > "We need to convert 1000 files from format *.yyy to format *.qqq"
>> > "Our company produces a report for each project, we use Excel to
>> calculate the average Lux levels from radiance, it's easy but boring after
>> 100 projects"
>> > Or anything else where you think - "I wish I had an intern do this for
>> me..." (Maybe you are this intern...)
>> >
>> > Help us by defining your problem with steps taken and the desired
>> result. Send them to:
>> > projects at pythonpoweredbuilding.com
>> >
>> > For all problems received, we will recommend ideas, methods, and
>> modules. We will furthermore select 3 projects to solve and feature in our
>> Workshop during the Building Simulation 2013 conference in France next
>> August http://www.bs2013.fr/. We will also feature these problems on our
>> website; http://www.pythonpoweredbuilding.com.
>> >
>> > Problems must therefore be free of any intellectual property and will
>> be open to all. For more information and more about us, please visit
>> http://www.pythonpoweredbuilding.com. If you are already a convert and
>> want to get involved, contact us at info at pythonpoweredbuilding.com.
>> >
>> > Please excuse cross posting, we will direct further updates primarily
>> to BLDG-SIM.
>> >
>> > Happy simulating,
>> >
>> > Marcus Jones, Clayton Miller, and Alan Jackson - Python evangelists
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Radiance-general mailing list
>> > Radiance-general at radiance-online.org
>> > http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Aksel Groß
>> Dipl.Ing.Arch.
>> Dipl.Szeno.
>>
>> Electric Gobo
>> Schönhauser Allee 182
>> 10119 Berlin, Germany
>>
>> aksel at gobo.io
>> T +49 30 559 531 75
>> M +49 179 394 30 92
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Radiance-general mailing list
>> Radiance-general at radiance-online.org
>> http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Radiance-general mailing list
> Radiance-general at radiance-online.org
> http://www.radiance-online.org/mailman/listinfo/radiance-general
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.radiance-online.org/pipermail/radiance-general/attachments/20121203/41f3d87f/attachment.html>