Acquisition of Building Geometry in the Simulation of Energy Performance

Building geometry is essential to any simulation of building performance. This paper examines the importing of building geometry into simulation of energy performance from the users' point of view. It lists performance requirements for graphic user interfaces that input building geometry, and discusses the basic options in moving from two- to three-dimensional definition of geometry and the ways to import that geometry into energy simulation. The obvious answer lies in software interoperability. With the BLIS group of interoperable software one can interactively import building geometry from CAD into EnergyPlus and dramatically reduce the effort otherwise needed for manual input.

The resulting savings may greatly increase the value obtained from simulation, the number of projects in which energy performance simulation is used, and expedite decision making in the design process.