[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Olivier]

Garry,

You might want to open the "Thermal Intro" tutorial and delete the zone 2 and roof zone, so you are left with a very simple zone, zone1 (blue). The window needs to be changed to another glazing material that has a material layer, such as Heatabsorb_10mm.
This is a simple box and might not be the best example to show how to export to Energy+, but it should nonetheless export fine so that you can get a feel for it. Don't forget to assign a weather file. Once E+ opens, you can edit some of the model properties.

Let us know if you encounter any issues with that.

Olivier

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Garry Noe]

Olivier,

I appreciate your response. The export utility doesn't like the (new) window or metal roof, though. Is it sufficient to define new constructions in Ecotect - one's that E+ is happy with - and then assign these to walls, windows, etc. before running the export utility? I'm uneasy mainly because there are parameters and spellings (e.g. "thermal decrement" and "colour") that exist in Ecotect but not in E+. Presumably translation takes care of this, but a wee bit more detail in the help file or a working example would be nice.

Thanks again,

Garry

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Olivier]

Garry,

Basically, E+ needs to know excactly what the assembly is made out of, so you have to "construct" it in the layer window of the material assignment.

In Ecotect, this is not necessary to do as long as you fill up the fields under the material properties window, such as color, thermal decrement etc...
E+, however, uses the properties as described under the Layer tab.

Some of the default material in Ecotect, such as some glazing material, have no layers assigned to them. This is fine to work in Ecotect, but it will not export properly to E+.

I would try building a simple box in Ecotect, and assign it material which have layers determined in Ecotect. You can then work your way up from there, adding a window, a door...etc. As you go on and your geometry become more complex, take care to avoid the overlap issues as explained in the help file.

Let us know how things go.
Best,
Olivier

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by craines]

Hi Garry.

We have been working on the E+ export in the new v5.50 recently, so we do have a few models... However I need to go through these for v5.20 suitability as some things have improved in the export for the upcoming release.
So will post these here for you in the next few days, once I've found some time to sort through them...

Regards,
Caroline

Caroline Raines
Square One research Pty Ltd

[Archived phorum post from squ1.com v2 by Garry Noe]

Caroline,

Thanks! I've eliminated most of the E+ error messages by being careful with surface orientation in Ecotect or reordering vertices using the IDF Editor. I've learned a lot this week.

Regards,

Garry

I would like to model a building with Ecotect and then export it for use in EnergyPlus. I've tried creating a simple "box" house that I can export, but I'd like to model a more complex building that has heating and cooling (inputs more complex than can be entered in the zone properties tab). I don't really want to deal with syntax puzzles in a text editor for EnergyPlus because I'm new to using it. What would you suggest I try?
Thanks,
Wendy

Dear ECOTECT users,

I´m currently using Ecotect to model EPlus geometry, but I´m having
hard time to figure it out a working procedure so that all of the
resulting errors from the export could be avoided, like the
overlapping ones, etc. I found your messages on the yahoo group and I
would like to ask, if after all of your experience, you could give
some guidance help, maybe a working procedure with a couple of
modelling rules to make all of the export procedure as clean as
possible. Any guidance help would be helpful.

Thank you very much for your help
Regards
Nuno