Forums >> Revit Building >> Technical Support >> Daylight Calculations for LEED

iamian33

active

Joined: Tue, Nov 17, 2009
148 Posts
No Rating

Greetings,

I am venturing into the realm of LEED based daylight calculations ... is anyone out there able to give me some guidance? 

• Curtain Wall Material Take-off schedules will give me the actual SF for each panel of a Curtain Wall.  This is a good thing, but I can not find anything similar for glazing panels in doors or Windows (non-curtain wall glazing). 
• I have a tag for the Curtain Wall panel but none for the glazing panels in doors or Windows (non-curtain wall glazing)

I don't expect to find that Revit has ALL the answers yet, but I would like to leverage the data from my models as much as possible.  Perhaps a series of schedules that 'mine' the SF of all the glazing would be a good start, for now.

Has anyone gone down this path yet?  If there are any discussion groups or experiences I can tap into, I would greatly appreciate it. 

-----------------------------------

Ian Shafer

Principal Consultant

True North S&F Consultants

This user is offline

View Website

iamian33

active

Joined: Tue, Nov 17, 2009
148 Posts
No Rating

So a colleague (from another discussion board) was kind enough to suggest the simple solution of using the Material Take-off Schedule and filtering by 'Material:Name = Glass' ... works like a charm. 

Thought I'd share.

I will be curious to see if this schedule takes into account mullions in it's calculation of glazing area for Window objects (as opposed to Curtain Wall or Storefront). 

The next step will be to relate these scheduled glazing units to the Room and also the relationship to the floor/ceiling line, as these are LEED requirements for such calculations.

I would appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals who are seeking similar information.  I invite you to contact me if you wish ...

-----------------------------------

Ian Shafer

Principal Consultant

True North S&F Consultants

This user is offline

View Website

alabaster2513

active

Joined: Tue, Jan 16, 2007
1009 Posts

This user is offline

View Website

iamian33

active

Joined: Tue, Nov 17, 2009
148 Posts
No Rating

I greatly appreciate the suggestion, but my bosses want to see Revit doing it.  They might be open to Ecotect or another similar product but they are not at all interested in pruchasing 3ds Max Design. 

So I have taken the approach to have Revit schedule the glazing.  My current issue is now the tagging of the glazing panels.  I've begun a new thread for this at: http://www.revitcity.com/forums.php?action=viewthread&thread_id=21871

I need to uniquely identify each pane of glazing, or at the least, each window, curtainwall, storefront and door (w/ glass).  The tag muct be:

• visible/printable in elevation and plan and
• the unique ID number must show in a material schedule.   

Automatic numbering would be nice too ... but I'll be happy to be able to tag and schedule the glass panels.  Baby steps ...

-----------------------------------

Ian Shafer

Principal Consultant

True North S&F Consultants

This user is offline

View Website

clairedinh

active

Joined: Thu, Jan 22, 2009
3 Posts
No Rating

How did this work out for you? were you able to comlete the daylighting calc for LEED? (i'm assuming this is for IEQc8.1).

I'm currently looking into different software/plug-ins for daylighting simulation. Any advice will helpful.

This user is offline

iamian33

active

Joined: Tue, Nov 17, 2009
148 Posts
No Rating

Well ... we were only able to get so far.  The current facilities in Revit are not very supportive of LEED daylighting calculations. 

The reports under Export/Room Area Reports is helpful in that it generates a quick calculation of % window SF and room SF, however it sees only the rough opening of the window and not the area of glazing.  It also does not calculate the Daylight and Vision glass area.  We are using this for a 'quick hit' only and subtracting a calculated percentage for window mullions/frames. 

The material take-off schedule of glazing has some value but it calculates the ENTIRE surface area of glass ... both sides and the edges.  A strange quirk of Revit, in my opinion.  But if you take this area and divide by 2.1 the result has some value but is subject to error (thickness of glass * perimeter).

We have settled on simply delivering a Room Schedule with SF along with a simple Window Schedule sorted by Room (itemize every instance is checked).  Then reviewing each window type in a traditional manner for SF of Daylight/Vision glass.  In other words, analyzing each window type manually for these SF values. 

I hope to then add this manually calculated value to each window type as a parameter so that it can be scheduled in the Window schedule.  Haven't gotten there yet.

The bottom line, as I see it, Revit will provide some good information but we will still need to do a great deal of work with this data.  The data provided directly by Revit is a time-saver, for sure.  But I am hopeful that future versions will get us there more efficiently. 

We have not explored Ecotect or 3D Studio Max, but I understand that 3DSM does a good calculation of Daylighting for LEED.  I'd appreciate any direction for the 'next step' ...

Hope that this helps.Ian

-----------------------------------

Ian Shafer

Principal Consultant

True North S&F Consultants

This user is offline

View Website

clairedinh

active

Joined: Thu, Jan 22, 2009
3 Posts
No Rating

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=12602821&siteID=123112

This user is offline

iamian33

active

Joined: Tue, Nov 17, 2009
148 Posts
No Rating

Hi Claire.

I wasn't overwhelmed with Ecotect but let me know if you find anything useful for daylighting. 

Ian

-----------------------------------

Ian Shafer

Principal Consultant

True North S&F Consultants

This user is offline

View Website

Load Calcs for LEED

0

Daylight Portals

1

Could someone send me an Daylighting Analysis image for LEED? [ 1 2 ]

15

daylight portals

5

Can you limit Daylight Portals?

4