Hello all.
I have uploaded an old version 0.4 video tutorial on creating airflow networks in EnergyPlus with EnVi. Some things may no longer apply to the v0.6 version but until I have time to do a v0.6 tutorial this may prove useful.
As ever, video below.
Dear all.
I have, I believe, finished adding features to the VI-Suite, for now, and I am now moving into bug-fixing mode. I do not have the access to other computing platforms that I used to have due to the pandemic, so I am interested to hear if there are any activation issues with v0.6 on OS X, Windows and different flavours of Linux.
The zip file of the source code can be downloaded from https://github.com/rgsouthall/vi-suite06/archive/master.zip. This zip file should be installable directly from Blender’s addon preferences window. I have been working purely with Blender 2.83.6 LTS, and while it may work on later Blender versions I am primarily interested in any activation issues with 2.83.6 LTS.
I have not yet finished updating the user manual for v0.6 but for simple sun path, shadow mapping, SVF and LiVi (Radiance) calculations the process is quite similar to v0.4 and the tutorial videos for that release will hopefully give you enough to get started. EnVi (EnergyPlus) and FloVi (OpenFOAM) have changed quite a bit, and I advise waiting for updated documentation before trying those components. I will post here again when a basic manual is available. Tutorial videos will follow after that.
Any bug reports should go in the github page https://github.com/rgsouthall/vi-suite06/issues and general questions on the google group https://groups.google.com/g/vi-suite. Please include in any bug report platform information, the nature and version of the Blender install and any relevant terminal output.
Cheers
Ryan
Dear all.
EnVi has now been transferred over to Blender 2.8, and most of the changes the user will see are within EnVi. The EnVi material system has been converted into a node system to allow up the EnergyPlus maximum of 10 layers in constructions. EnVi now supports the simulation of photovoltaics and phase change materials and you can now save your custom materials and constructions to a JSON database.
An example of an EnVi Material node set-up
The other major change in EnVi is that as ‘Layers’ now no longer exist in Blender – ‘Collections’ are used instead – EnergyPlus zones are specified by the Blender objects contained within collections. This allows multiple Blender objects to make up an EnergyPlus zone, and this has some advantages I hope to make use of in the future. I have not yet however finalised the logic of how muliple Blender objects become one EnergyPlus zone.
In other news the VI-Suite is now completely self-contained within the addon zip folder (at least on Windows and Linux). This means that you can install in Blender the git zip directly, and it will hopefully make it easier to get the VI-Suite working on a variety of Linux platforms.
I have general bug fixing still to do and Wind Rose display to finish, but I am hoping to announce a beta release for testing soon.
There is one fly in the ointment. The Blender 2.8 series does not currently allow the keyframing of custom node parameters. As most of the Vi-Suite parameters exposed to the user are custom node parameters, it means that automated parametric analysis is largely not possible. This has been recognised by the Blender developers and if you want to register your interest in getting this fixed you can do so at https://developer.blender.org/T66392. The more people asking for it to be fixed the more likely it is to be fixed.
Regards
Ryan
I have pushed version 0.4.13a to the download links which fixes an EnVi bug to account for syntax changes in EnergyPlus 8.9.
In other news, a couple of users have told me that the VI-Suite works on Ubuntu 18.04. I can confirm that their method does work on a fresh install of 18.04, although I have had problems running it on an 18.04 system that was upgraded from 16.04.
The process is pretty simple.
Make sure there is no existing Blender installation
Install Blender from a PPA with the terminal commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install blender
This version of Blender should use the system installed Python distribution which will now require the ancillary libraries. To install these use the terminal commands:
sudo apt-get install python3-psutil
sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5
sudo apt-get install python3-matplotlib
sudo apt-get install python3-kivy
The last command to install kivy should work in future but the current Python 3 version of kivy (1.9.1) is broken on Ubuntu 18.04. To get round this:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kivy-team/kivy-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-kivy
I have changed the tar.gz compressed Linux VI-Suite download to a zip compressed one on the main download page. This can be installed directly from the Addons page within Blender’s User Preferences window with the Install-addon-from-file button. Alternatively, decompress and copy the folder to Blender’s Addon directory as before.
Below is a short video detailing how to create multiple EnVi zones and designate the boundary between these zones as thermal transfer surfaces for EnergyPlus simulation.
Below is a short video detailing how to specify a natural ventilation network in EnVi for simulation with EnergyPlus.
Below is a short video detailing the specification of EnVi zone operation for simulation with EnergyPlus.
Please note that when I say m³/hr in the video I actually mean m³/s.
Below is a short tutorial video detailing how to designate a Blender object as an EnVi zone for analysis with EnergyPlus.