Radiance tool and Atrium daylight

radiance-general
1

Jiangto,

Welcome to the wonderful confusing world of radiance.

Firstly, I am a big fan of Ecotect, as it is a great tool for modeling. I
certainly prefer it to Autocad, 3d studio etc. It's development was always
intended for use during early design stages by providing quick iterative
results.

However, I would also suggest that using it with Desktop Radiance will not
only seriously limit the analysis process by limiting access to the newer
Radiance functions, but also potentially compromise the validity of your
results and cloud your understanding of the various Radiance analysis
functions and parameters.

So, if you have access to Linux and the latest Radiance versions, I would go
with that, but use Ecotect to build your models and export the relevant .rad
files. You can also export the analysis girds locations etc for use with
Rtrace directly within Linux version. Finally, you can then re-import the
values to Ecotect for certainly visualization tasks.

I run Ubuntu Linux on my windows machine through VMware workstation, where
you can set up shared folders to move data between linux and windows.

I would however strongly recommend that you have a look at Axel's Radiance
tutorials from London Metropolitan University as these are on the money as
they say. They can be found at:
http://www.learn.londonmet.ac.uk/student/resources/notes.shtml.

Good luck..

Nick
Nick Devlin Associates

···

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

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:32:11 +0100 (BST)
From: Jiangtao Du <[email protected]>
Subject: [Radiance-general] Radiance tool and Atrium daylight
  simulation
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi, friends,
   
  I am a post-graduate student in Sheffield University. My project is atrium
daylighting and I want to simulate atrium daylight using Radiance. As a
beginner of this tool, I have many questions:
   
  1. Do you think Ecotech 5.5 with Desktop Radiance control panel (the
newest version ) is the right tool to do my atrium research? I like using it
for its clear GUI, but if it could finish similar work and achieve the same
results as its UNIX/LINUX brother?
   
  2. I think a lot of complex atrium roofs have to be researched and
constructed in my project, if UNIX/LINUX Radiance is the most suitable tool?
If Linux version is good, could I use the Radiance on Cygwin Environment?
   
  3. Someone has told me that Radiance in Adeline is a cut-version, but I
found some atrium daylight papers which have used this tool (Anca D.
Galasiu, Morad R. Atif from Canada, B. Calcagni, M. Paroncini from Italy).
How about your opinion?
   
  4. Mac Radinace is a new choice , I found some researchers recommended the
Sketchup + Radiance is a good way. Could you compare this with Sketchup (or
Autocad) + Ecotech +Radiance?
   
  Many thanks to your help.
   
  Jiangtao Du
  Mphi/phd student in School of Arch in Sheffield Univ

2

Please also consider the Mac option.

Radiance runs at full steam.

you can use vtk or opendx for cutting edge visuals or any other x11
based system (and these come either free of pre compiled for about 10
Pounds and do work well).

all maya, cinema4d, archicad, sketchup, formz, argon, vectorworks, modo,
solidthinking are native applications.... and many others for good 3d
modelling

Python is there so blender and Francesco and Thomas good stuff is ready
out of the box.

If you need to use Windows you can just have it side by side with
parallel and this works great (for instance you can drag and drop files
from one to the other or use copy and paste seamlessly... ask for a demo
and see it)

Tried keynote for presentations instead of PPT?

finally you have a native, well working, Unix system but simple to use
and administer, with a nice coherent interface and a full set of system
options:
you do not have two system panels from two different distributions that
try to do the same and one is v1.1b and the other v0.1.1, there is just
one, graphically coherent version throughout...

But I guess if I push more it will be clear that I have quite some
shares
:slight_smile:

Good luck!

G.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nick
Devlin
Sent: 27 March 2007 11:23
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Radiance-general] Radiance tool and Atrium daylight

Jiangto,

Welcome to the wonderful confusing world of radiance.

Firstly, I am a big fan of Ecotect, as it is a great tool for modeling.
I
certainly prefer it to Autocad, 3d studio etc. It's development was
always
intended for use during early design stages by providing quick iterative
results.

However, I would also suggest that using it with Desktop Radiance will
not
only seriously limit the analysis process by limiting access to the
newer
Radiance functions, but also potentially compromise the validity of your
results and cloud your understanding of the various Radiance analysis
functions and parameters.

So, if you have access to Linux and the latest Radiance versions, I
would go
with that, but use Ecotect to build your models and export the relevant
.rad
files. You can also export the analysis girds locations etc for use with
Rtrace directly within Linux version. Finally, you can then re-import
the
values to Ecotect for certainly visualization tasks.

I run Ubuntu Linux on my windows machine through VMware workstation,
where
you can set up shared folders to move data between linux and windows.

I would however strongly recommend that you have a look at Axel's
Radiance
tutorials from London Metropolitan University as these are on the money
as
they say. They can be found at:
http://www.learn.londonmet.ac.uk/student/resources/notes.shtml.

Good luck..

Nick
Nick Devlin Associates

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

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:32:11 +0100 (BST)
From: Jiangtao Du <[email protected]>
Subject: [Radiance-general] Radiance tool and Atrium daylight
  simulation
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi, friends,
   
  I am a post-graduate student in Sheffield University. My project is
atrium
daylighting and I want to simulate atrium daylight using Radiance. As a
beginner of this tool, I have many questions:
   
  1. Do you think Ecotech 5.5 with Desktop Radiance control panel (the
newest version ) is the right tool to do my atrium research? I like
using it
for its clear GUI, but if it could finish similar work and achieve the
same
results as its UNIX/LINUX brother?
   
  2. I think a lot of complex atrium roofs have to be researched and
constructed in my project, if UNIX/LINUX Radiance is the most suitable
tool?
If Linux version is good, could I use the Radiance on Cygwin
Environment?
   
  3. Someone has told me that Radiance in Adeline is a cut-version, but
I
found some atrium daylight papers which have used this tool (Anca D.
Galasiu, Morad R. Atif from Canada, B. Calcagni, M. Paroncini from
Italy).
How about your opinion?
   
  4. Mac Radinace is a new choice , I found some researchers recommended
the
Sketchup + Radiance is a good way. Could you compare this with Sketchup
(or
Autocad) + Ecotech +Radiance?
   
  Many thanks to your help.
   
  Jiangtao Du
  Mphi/phd student in School of Arch in Sheffield Univ

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3

Giulio Antonutto wrote:

Please also consider the Mac option.
  

I've gotta back up what Giulio said. I struggled for years to get a decent, working Linux/Radiance installation, with limited success. I spent more time learning Linux than radiance, and everyone knows, you need lots of time to learn the latter! When Greg Ward mentioned that the latest version of radiance compiled on his mac (December 2001), I shot him an email asking for more info about this new Mac OS that could compile c code! True to form, Greg obliged with lots of info, pointers, etc. A couple weeks later I had a PowerBook and a working Radiance installation (a fast one, I might add) and was rpicting to my heart's content.

Five years and one laptop upgrade later, I'm still quite happy. Especially for a one-machine solution, the Mac is a great way to go. As Giulio pointed out, if you have to have AutoCAD (or any other Windows-based program) you can run Parallels on the Intel-based MacBooks/MacBook Pros; it's really great. And you'll find all kinds of interesting tips, tools and tricks with Radiance on this mailing list, many of which require compiling code, or running a shell script, or whatever. This is all so much easier on OSX since a full, compliant UNIX subsystem lies underneath the pretty desktop interface of OSX.

Of course you can get more horsepower for your dollar with a homebuilt AMD solution running Linux. If budget is the driving force, then you may want to consider that route, and others on the list here can offer some advice in that arena. Good luck either way!

- Rob