Hello.

If you’re doing building modelling outside of Blender and importing the geometry into Blender for analysis with the VI-Suite there are some things to bear in mind, especially if the other application is not a mesh modeller like Blender e.g. Rhino, Sketchup.

If possible export the model from the other application with the unit as metres as Blender will interpret the unit as Blender units which are equivalent to 1m in the VI-Suite. Also make sure that your model is situated appropriately relative to the origin point in the other application. If importing 1 building for example put the building near the origin point before exporting.

For most types of analyses with the VI-Suite exporting the geometry as one OBJ or 3ds object can be useful as it makes manipulation of the geometry in Blender a bit easier. If doing an EnergyPlus simulation with EnVi, exporting an object for each thermal zone you wish to simulate is optimal.

Applications like Rhino and Sketchup also have to convert their native geometry for export to 3ds or OBJ files for import into Blender, and this conversion can lead to very messy mesh geometry. The Blender tools ‘Remove Doubles’ and ‘Limited Dissolve’ can help you clean up this geometry.

The video below shows how to prepare imported geometry in Blender for simulation with the VI-Suite.