[Radiance-general] New Radiance Website

Tue Mar 6 09:32:54 PST 2012

I'd also like to point out that NREL is developing the Building Component
Library (BCL), initially conceived as a repository for vetted energy model
components, but there is no reason why Radiance data/models couldn't be
added to the schema. The idea is there will be a place to go to search for
energy model bits -- everything from HVAC, windows, materials, lights,
weather files -- and these can be downloaded, or pulled directly into an
OpenStudio model. I definitely envision us adding Radiance-ready data to
these database members.

We've got it mocked up here: https://bcl.nrel.gov/

So, another place to link to.

Rob Guglielmetti  IESNA, LEED AP
Commercial Buildings Research Group
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
1617 Cole Blvd MS:RSF202
Golden, CO 80401
T. 303.275.4319
F. 303.630.2055
E. robert.guglielmetti at nrel.gov

On 3/6/12 10:22 AM, "Andy McNeil" <amcneil at lbl.gov> wrote:

>HI Lars,
>
>I think your comments regarding FAQ's are spot on.  I don't want to
>duplicate effort, so I'd like to let you continue to develop your FAQ and
>will replace the stub on with a redirection to your site.  It would be
>nice to integrate the two, at least using the same login/passwords.
>
>I agree that models are generally less useful than objects, but I would
>contend that in the research community there are desires to share and use
>standard models.  I have some Radiance models for DOE prototype buildings
>that others might like to use.  And HMG has 61 models of existing
>buildings that many have already asked for them to share.
>
>But regardless, we can let users decide which is worth sharing.  And
>taking the lead from your FAQ, we could get rid of the formal categories
>and instead using tags.  If you want to simulate a daylight redirecting
>system you would probably want to see results for both a cal file and a
>model of the system.
>
>I'll end by saying -  please help!
>
>Andy
>
>
>
>
>On Mar 5, 2012, at 3:56 PM, Lars O. Grobe wrote:
>
>> Hi Andy, hi list!
>> 
>> 
>> This is a nice framework for an appealing site! I especially like the
>> fact that the design of the "good old" site could be adopted.
>> 
>> I started setting up something related recently. Not based on Plone but
>> Drupal, not a complete "Radiance Website" but a concept focussing on
>> just having a working FAQ one day. You may get an idea here:
>> 
>> http://radiance.larsgrobe.de
>> 
>> The only part of interest on the site is the FAQ for now. I have spent
>> some time on thinking how to organize a FAQ, and abandoned the idea of
>> having single categories per question. I believe a tag-system being much
>> more appropriate, e.g. a question/answer pair on mkillum might be
>> related to "commands", "diffuse indirect calculation", "complex glazing"
>> and "optimizations". One day one might decide to also tag the content on
>> user levels, so a tag "advanced user" might be added. Browsing the
>> mailing lists, there is such a vast amount of information that I tend to
>> pay a lot of attention on the topic of marking it. Once a certain amount
>> of content is available, tag clouds (which may occur in alphabetical
>> order - I do not rely like the fancy cloud displays typically rendered
>> with lots of formatting) may be of more help then a fixed hierarchy.
>> 
>> One feature that I spent some time on was to integrate tex notation into
>> the content management. I added a test on the start page. You can embed
>> any Latex code in the content, which will be rendered into inline
>> images, but also be available as pdf downloads. The need to display
>> formulas and algorithms seams to be of importance. I am going to add
>> support for describing geometry in the content management, too -
>> basically I want to keep content descriptive and avoid bitmap images as
>> far as possible, so that content can be reused (e.g. for copying the
>> Latex source into a formula editor when writing an article), reformatted
>> and extended at any time.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On sharing: I think that sharing models is an interesting part of a
>> community website, though I am not sure that much model content will
>> become available. Most Radiance models are case-studies - buildings,
>> rooms, facades. Objects to be shared are more like furniture and other
>> decorative stuff, not bound to a specific use case - which is already
>> available on the internat. Similar is true for textures.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I see a need for sharing of cal-files. This would require an interface
>> where I could check the parameters and get a preview of the results -
>> downloading the cal-file is easy, using it makes things difficult.
>> 
>> 
>> The gallery is a must....
>> 
>> 
>> A Radiance material library would be great and is a topic on its own. I
>> started a concept of holding material data in a database, with several
>> interfaces to access it. I would prefer the data to be independent of
>> the software using it, so e.g. I would want spectral resolutions
>> supported beyond the three RGB channels natively supported by Radiance.
>> 
>> Extracting a Radiance material from this could be implemented in the
>> interface - combining the measured data from the database with the
>> assumptions to be made when using it in Radiance (e.g. I would need to
>> know that the data from the spectrometer are to be used with a plastic
>> modifier). So a material record could contain a table "models", where I
>> could add proposed models for various software tools. So querying the
>> model-table for "Radiance" for this material would return "plastic",
>> while querying for "MyOtherRenderer" could return
>>"lambertianReflection".
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I decided not to publicly announce this project so far, as there is
>> little content right now. Maybe there is some potential for combining
>> efforts, so I add this to the discussion.
>> 
>> Cheers, Lars.
>> 
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>
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