IES-VE User Forum

Hello IES-ians,

I'm modelling a complex geometry across two floors, with different layouts on each floor. Some of these zones have "open" sides/ceilings, while others are simple internal partitions/ceilings. I'm trying to split a zone on one floor, which is adjacent to several different zones on the floor below - but keep getting this error "encountered an improper argument" forcing me to quit and restart the program.

Here's where it gets interesting...this error has appeared at different stages of the splitting of the zone (I'm splitting it into several smaller portions), and sometimes it won't appear after performing the same actions!

What am I doing to cause this and how can I avoid it in the future?

TG

Usually these errors are the cause of geometry problems. CP offers some good advice on modelling in the following post.

What I would add to that is to try and only use the grid snap if possible and always draw with the intersection check ON. If you are modelling a tricky space then toggle the grid settings appropriately. It can go down to 0.0001m so can still be very accurate. Try and leave out unnecessary features like indented walls (really, what impact will a small 3cm indent have on a thermal analysis?).

Also perform regular checks in ModelIT. To check the geometry selecting Settings>Model in ModelIT.



Check Intersection & Surfaces and then select ‘Check’.



At the end a text file will be produced reporting the following.

Intersections
Zero Volume
Scanning Model for openings (>10) (you can ignore this one)
Slivers
Zero Area surfaces
Non-Planar surfaces
External Holes
Unmatched adjacencies

If you have the time then we would advise fixing all reported problems but for speed you can focus more serious problems like Non Planer Surfaces, Zero Volume and Zero Surface Area first and then think about fixing Intersecting spaces and Unmatched Adjacencies.

Non Planer Surfaces: These are usually caused by vertices being moved around to invalid areas causing the surface to warp, you need to delete these zones and redraw.

Zero Volume: The zero volume report indicates problem zones that contain a volume of 0m³ (or ft³ in IP) or negative volume. This is caused by invalid geometry (usually import from Revit/SketchUp)... The solution is to redraw the space within ModelIT.

Zero Surface Area: Zero surface area highlights zones that have surfaces of area 0m² or less.. Again, re-drawing the zone is the solution to fix this problem.