Hello,
We are trying to import a large sketchup model into IES by using the IES Sketchup plugin. We pre-processed the model considerably and are pretty sure there are no openings in the rooms. The building is a multi floor office building with fins to act as shading devices on the exterior. Importing a small portion with a few floors and no fins seems to work fine but the system hangs when we try to import the whole building. We tried to import the whole building with and without the fins but were unsuccessful.
The main problem is that the find rooms program just hangs. If the program comes up with some result, by finding or not finding rooms, then I could take corrective action. I have even let the program run the whole night believing that the program is taking a lot of time for the process, but have been unsuccessful.
Could someone let me know How I can resolve this. I tried to upload the zip file of the model(~4 Mb) but the server seems to have size restrictions on uploading files.
Thanks,
kbk
Find rooms hangs on a large sketchup file
Re: Find rooms hangs on a large sketchup file
Hi,
I believe I have a copy of this model at the moment. I tried running the Identify Rooms process on the entire building (with fins excluded) and the process did not complete.
I'm not sure why this is at the moment but will continue to inspect the model. It may be the sheer scale of the building (around 76 floors)? I haven't really looked into the limits of the IES <VE> SketchUp plug-in yet but would be interested to hear what size of models other users have been putting into the plug-in - how many floors, rooms etc? Also, have there been other large projects that the plug-in has struggled with?
For now I also note that there are lot's of extra lines and co-linear vertices. This has been known to cause problems for the Identify Rooms process in the past. I'll try tidying these up to see if that helps speed things up.
Phil
I believe I have a copy of this model at the moment. I tried running the Identify Rooms process on the entire building (with fins excluded) and the process did not complete.
I'm not sure why this is at the moment but will continue to inspect the model. It may be the sheer scale of the building (around 76 floors)? I haven't really looked into the limits of the IES <VE> SketchUp plug-in yet but would be interested to hear what size of models other users have been putting into the plug-in - how many floors, rooms etc? Also, have there been other large projects that the plug-in has struggled with?
For now I also note that there are lot's of extra lines and co-linear vertices. This has been known to cause problems for the Identify Rooms process in the past. I'll try tidying these up to see if that helps speed things up.
Phil
IES Worldwide Technical Support
Re: Find rooms hangs on a large sketchup file
Hello,
The ruby script from the following link worked great to combine all the broken lines.
http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDep ... n_lines.rb
I could successfully import the file into IES after that. For some reason some of the floors were missing. Surprisingly the different floors were being missed at different import attempts. This would suggest that the all the rooms were indeed closed.
However I just copied the missing rooms from similar rooms in IES.
thanks for your insights..
Right now I am attempting to import only the fins (with the building deleted) to be used as an obstruction file. I created a small dummy space as the plugin seems to need atleast one room to export to IES. I created a component for the fins and categorised it as shade. However the program seems to hang indefenately. Can someone offer me some hints on this.
thanks
The ruby script from the following link worked great to combine all the broken lines.
http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDep ... n_lines.rb
I could successfully import the file into IES after that. For some reason some of the floors were missing. Surprisingly the different floors were being missed at different import attempts. This would suggest that the all the rooms were indeed closed.
However I just copied the missing rooms from similar rooms in IES.
thanks for your insights..
Right now I am attempting to import only the fins (with the building deleted) to be used as an obstruction file. I created a small dummy space as the plugin seems to need atleast one room to export to IES. I created a component for the fins and categorised it as shade. However the program seems to hang indefenately. Can someone offer me some hints on this.
thanks
Re: Find rooms hangs on a large sketchup file
Hi,
I'm glad you found a solution to the previous issues. I haven't done much research into extra lines in models but this does seem to be a problem when the plug-in is interrogating geometry to identify rooms. I will certainly have a look at this ruby file and perhaps suggest a future enhancement to our own plug-in to utilise something like this
As for the fins. understanding how the IES Plug-in deals with Groups/Components will probably shed some light on what is going on here. When a Component is defined as Shading or Room (basically it is marked to be included in the analysis) the plug-in will attempt to explode the component. I can see these fins comprise of lots of small surfaces and manually exploding these seems to take a long time. I have been exploding them one by one for the last 40 minutes. And this is before the plug-in can even start to analyse them to create the geometry in <VE>. For now I would suggest you look at simplifying these if possible.
I will finish exploding these by hand and then run the Identify Rooms tool to see if the surfaces come into <VE> at all.
PS you were right just to create a dummy room (I kept the bottom room in the model) as the Room Identification tool needs to at least have one room to make a <VE> project.
This model has certainly pushed the IES <VE> SketchUp plug-in to its limits!
Phil
I'm glad you found a solution to the previous issues. I haven't done much research into extra lines in models but this does seem to be a problem when the plug-in is interrogating geometry to identify rooms. I will certainly have a look at this ruby file and perhaps suggest a future enhancement to our own plug-in to utilise something like this
As for the fins. understanding how the IES Plug-in deals with Groups/Components will probably shed some light on what is going on here. When a Component is defined as Shading or Room (basically it is marked to be included in the analysis) the plug-in will attempt to explode the component. I can see these fins comprise of lots of small surfaces and manually exploding these seems to take a long time. I have been exploding them one by one for the last 40 minutes. And this is before the plug-in can even start to analyse them to create the geometry in <VE>. For now I would suggest you look at simplifying these if possible.
I will finish exploding these by hand and then run the Identify Rooms tool to see if the surfaces come into <VE> at all.
PS you were right just to create a dummy room (I kept the bottom room in the model) as the Room Identification tool needs to at least have one room to make a <VE> project.
This model has certainly pushed the IES <VE> SketchUp plug-in to its limits!
Phil
IES Worldwide Technical Support
Re: Find rooms hangs on a large sketchup file
Hi Colin,
I would hope there is some room for the SketchUp plug-in Room Identification tool to be improved in future so that it can handle large/complex geometry more efficiently.
For now it sounds like you would be better bringing the model into <VE> in small sections. You can easily do this by bringing a building through to <VE>, save the project then export GEM file (In ModelIT select File >> Export GEM File). Do this for each building then create a new <VE> project and in ModelIT import each building using File >> Import GEM File.
This is the equivalent of importing the geometry from each building into a SketchUp project. I hope this helps you to carry on with the project.
Regards,
Phil
I would hope there is some room for the SketchUp plug-in Room Identification tool to be improved in future so that it can handle large/complex geometry more efficiently.
For now it sounds like you would be better bringing the model into <VE> in small sections. You can easily do this by bringing a building through to <VE>, save the project then export GEM file (In ModelIT select File >> Export GEM File). Do this for each building then create a new <VE> project and in ModelIT import each building using File >> Import GEM File.
This is the equivalent of importing the geometry from each building into a SketchUp project. I hope this helps you to carry on with the project.
Regards,
Phil
IES Worldwide Technical Support
Re: Find rooms hangs on a large sketchup file
Hi,
It sounds like your setup is enough to run the plug-in - you've got enough RAM and although the plug-in will only use a single core, it means the other core is there for you to run other processes while using the plug-in.
I've found recently that when models don't identify quickly you can improve them by deleting extra lines and details in the model that don't add to the analysis model. Also, if the corridors are complex shapes you could try splitting these up into parts (separated by hole partitions so you won't affect results).
We will soon be releasing a new version of the SketchUp plug-in that has some very useful features and improvements regarding room identification, if you can't get these models to run with the current version then I would certainly advise upgrading your plug-in when the new version is released.
Phil
It sounds like your setup is enough to run the plug-in - you've got enough RAM and although the plug-in will only use a single core, it means the other core is there for you to run other processes while using the plug-in.
I've found recently that when models don't identify quickly you can improve them by deleting extra lines and details in the model that don't add to the analysis model. Also, if the corridors are complex shapes you could try splitting these up into parts (separated by hole partitions so you won't affect results).
We will soon be releasing a new version of the SketchUp plug-in that has some very useful features and improvements regarding room identification, if you can't get these models to run with the current version then I would certainly advise upgrading your plug-in when the new version is released.
Phil
IES Worldwide Technical Support