RAC2009 + IES VE-Ware

[Elrond]

Has anyone installed and used the free VE-Ware from IES?

So far I get an "unrecoverable error" when I select the Set Model Properties button... Not sure if it is the file size or complexity or the software itself...

EDIT - having tried a very very simple model (2 rooms) it seems to work fine... and has a very nice clear output. It doesn't look very detailed but I haven't really played with it much.

(a bit frustrating that all the wall type etc are in imperial units for some reason... wonder who it is really aimed at...! )

[vennix]

I installed it and it seems to work oke.
Too bad you cant set the units
Even worde the toolkits are no longer free.
I tried installing the toolkits but something went wrong.
Now I get an error when I try to uninstall the toolkit

Geert

[Elrond]

It seems to dump a load of files on the desktop also... which I can't see where you can set the default file save locations or anything...

[Elrond]

I found a units setting - although it doesn't seem to change the material definitions from a mixture of imperial and metric...

It is under the menu IES <VE> --> about

[Elrond]

Originally Posted by Elrond

Has anyone installed and used the free VE-Ware from IES?

I guess not then huh?

[dbaldacchino]

Just installed and am playing around with it. Will post findings later.

[dbaldacchino]

Ok I'm back

I tried running it on an Elementary School project and it crashes before I can even review the model or set settings. So I decided to build a simple model and test on that. It seems to work fine, although I managed to crash several times even on a small tiny model (about 6 exterior walls, some interior walls, 4 rooms and a shape-edited planar roof.

Going through the white paper is valuable to figure out some of the settings and make sure your analytical model is correct. Things such as turning on volume calculations for your project and raising your room upper limits and offsets so they intersect other room bounding elements such as ceilings and roofs. When you check the model, it will tell you if there are "holes" in the surfaces and you can isolate each room surface model to investigate. In most cases it seemed to mess up at changes of direction of the roof when walls had the top attached. So some model tweaking might be necessary. The analyitical model is made up of flat 2D planes and that's why it might have difficulty at times to resolve complex shapes.

One thing I'm a bit disappointed about is that you have to manually select the type of roof, walls etc. Isn't that why we're modeling in Revit? Why do I have to go tell it again what my assembly is? The program should be taking my roof element in Revit and figuring out what the R value is. Obviously right now Revit doesn't keep track of that information so it's understandable, but hopefully this gets resolved soon or it'll be too time consuming. Revit either needs to store that information or there should be some mapping feature to tell VE-Ware that this specific wall has this U value, etc.

My building didn't pass the 2030 challenge It would be nice to get some sort of feedback as to where the major hit was taken; what type of improvements could I do to get it to pass? Obviously it could be there and I missed it as I haven't combed through the resulting report. I'll continue testing today and see what else I can find out.

EDIT: Also, why am I forced to select a mechanical system? Why cannot I select "Natural Ventilation" for example?

[padgham.graeme]

I have installed and used the VE Toolkit, I have run it on a large airport with a very complicated curved roof system (lots of 'waves). I takes about 5 minutes to enter the VE Modeler but so far has never crashed.

it is well worth (as said above) downloading and reading all the PDF files on the website, this will help no end with modelling correctly for analysis with the VE toolkit, you really cant use it without following the strict guildlines.

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks for your feedback. I can't tell what's wrong with my test project, but I know I tried it on a model that's not perfectly complete, so some checking would be in order before I try it again.

Are we talking about the same plugin though? You're mentioning the "toolkit" and in RAC2009, those options all require a license. Anyway, for the VE-Ware part, I was very surprised not to find an option to run calculations on a building without using a mechanical system for heating and cooling. Unless I'm missing something, there's no option to do this. What if I want to see how a building performs in a certain location and climate just by naturally ventilating it? Why should I be forced to select a mechanical system? Anyone else find this peculiar?

[kyle.bernhardt]

All,
I know the folks at IES well as very capable developers, and certainly a brilliant bunch. It sounds like you folks have found some situations that aren't jiving well with their initial release of the VE-Ware capability.

I'll pull them into this thread to address some of the issues you've found, as well as some of the questions.

Cheers,
Kyle B