New Suncast 'Analysis' Feature

[JohnLloyd]

When using the relatively new 'Analysis' feature within Suncast to colour the building surfaces depending on received solar energy, is there a way to get this to be shown for shading surfaces?

I draw PV in as 'local shade' and would like to be able to produce images showing the advantage of one PV location over another.

[PCully]

Hi,

No there is no option for this, my advice would just be to switch the 'type' to room for the purposes of your solar analysis.

Email feedback@iesve.com to request this, I'm sure you aren't the first person to desire this.

Phil

[ZapBran]

John

I've had a play with this a couple of times and you get a nice little result if you pull the ole switch-a-roo (note: not Rolf-a-roo).

Obviously don't work on your real thermal model - save a new one - then...

shove some dummy zones (full height) against all the external surfaces so you copy the windows on to them.
Draw a big outline zone to represent the full building and delete the real zones and the dummy zones.
Now we have a simple shell of our building.
draw the PV panels as thin rooms in position.
Change the shell to be an obstruction.
Run the analysis... hey presto nice coloured PV panels on a grey building...

Zap

[JohnLloyd]

That's similar to what I've been doing, it's a shame in such circumstances that we can't set the grid resolution to less than 1m; it'd be nice to get some prettier contour plots across the relatively small face area of the panels.

[willy_yu]

Hi,I am a student with simulation assignment using IES-VE. I also tried this "Analysis " feature, but when I run to "Simulate", it shows the pop up dialog box changing with loading sign, after that it seems that it has finished as the pop up dialog box disappeared. However, "simulate" button still inactive, and no result shown.
FYI, my model is simple, just a rectangular, with a window with egg crate shading on one side.
I also saw "solar shading calculations" button on the top tool bar. Is it the same function with "simulate" button ? The " solar shading calculations" button was gone smoothly, and shown the result within seconds.

Please anyone help...

Thank you.
'

[PCully]

Hi,

I think what you described is just how this works to be honest.

You click simulate and calc runs
After the calc has been run Simulate is greyed out since you don't need to run it again.
The results can be accessed in the Model Viewer ll where the colouring occurs - there is an Apply button at the bottom to launch this with the results displayed.

Actually that Apply button isn't so informative is it

The Solar Shading Calculations button runs the solar shading calc to generate the shading file which can be used as part of your Apache Simulations, it's a different (but related) thing.

Click Help >> User Guides to access the SunCast user guide in the Solar Section, it covers all of this in far more detail.

Phil