thermal glare

Hi, I am a graduate student in University of Southern California, and I want to ask some questions about using Ladybug and Honeybee. So I need to do some research about how the glaring problem caused by high-reflective and concave skyscraper. I need to simulate the Walkie Talkie building, and I need to pin point the location of the sunrays hitting the ground after being reflected by the facade and spot potential glare areas. And figure out the thermal comfort of the people standing of that point. I saw some discussion given by you about ray tracing , do you have any example file that I can refer to? Thanks!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 21, 2015 at 3:29pm

Code attached in next post - sorry I forgot it!

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 21, 2015 at 3:39pm

Oh! Forgot to attach the code, so sorry.

Attachments:

focus_2015Nov21c.gh, 60 KB

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 22, 2015 at 11:13am

Parabola top and bottom (concave):

Straight line bottom, parabola top (concave):

*** CONVEX PARABOLA BOTTOM ***

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 22, 2015 at 1:13pm

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 22, 2015 at 12:36pm

Convex Sweep - still a focus effect due to vertical edges (parabolas) used as rails:

Same rails as the extreme "Flat Parabola":

Attachments:

focus_2015Nov22.gh, 62 KB

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 22, 2015 at 2:20pm

Amusing art and GH code but sun rays bouncing at fixed grid points on the building's surface are a little math gremlin, eh? Exaggerating solar intensity as a function of cross-sectional surface area relative to altitude and azimuth? Fun to see, though, how concave surfaces focus and concentrate light:

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 23, 2015 at 2:46pm

Same building facing south in three cities (latitudes), late November between 0800 and 1600 (patterns vary by time of year too):

Honolulu, Hawaii (Lat ~21)

San Francisco, California (Lat ~38)

Fairbanks, Alaska (Lat ~65) (using 'Relative' instead of 'Absolute' setting on 'Heat Map'):

(re-posted with smaller animated gifs, 640 X 480)

Attachments:

focus_2015Nov23.gh, 68 KB

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 23, 2015 at 7:48pm

Low resolution is better when looking at "Bounced Lines on Surface Normals" (cyan light blue).

'Sun Grid' at 2.5 and 'cell size' at 4.

Honolulu, Hawaii (Lat ~21)

San Francisco, California (Lat ~38)

Fairbanks, Alaska (Lat ~65)

Attachments:

focus_2015Nov23b.gh, 58 KB

Permalink Reply by Joseph Oster on November 24, 2015 at 11:05am

This version uses a grid of evenly spaced "solar rays" so there are fewer intersection points near dawn and dusk. Slower at high resolution but more realistic.

Attachments: