ladybug - create sunshades

Hello,

I need an advice on how to create external sunshades on Ladybug.

I would like to obtain a result like in this picture; and eventually replicate this system on a more extended shading canopy.

This is my geometry (gray):

What is my problem? My problem is that the Shading Designer component gives me the following error when i try to work on a perfectly horizontal surface. I also want the kind of shading shown before to be 100% efficient at noon, so i set the sun vector at the right time, and this is the error i get.

if you can give some help, thank you.

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Antonello Di Nunzio on April 1, 2016 at 7:14pm

Hi Jay Ramos,

I have made a small component to deal your issue, I have to talk to Mostapha and Chris about it ,and if it is useful I'll ask them if it is possible to insert it inside of LB Shading designer component.

the component uses a shading surface which comes from LB Shading designer as input. And you can set the number of shading surfaces, and it calculates the ideal height of them automatically.

Best

Antonello

Permalink Reply by Abraham Yezioro on April 1, 2016 at 9:46pm

It is very useful Antonello!!

-A.

Permalink Reply by Antonello Di Nunzio on April 3, 2016 at 6:18pm

Hi Abraham,

Thanks! I have made a component about it, I have been waiting Chris and Mostapha to understand if I can add it or merge it inside LB shading designer.

in the reply below you can find an example file.

Best

Antonello

Permalink Reply by Jay Ramos on April 2, 2016 at 10:59am

ok thank you...so where do i find this component and get it to work? gotta solve this... thank you again for help

Permalink Reply by Antonello Di Nunzio on April 3, 2016 at 6:21pm

Hi Jay Ramos,

Here's an example where you can find the component which I made.

Best

Antonello

Attachments:

example_Horizontal shading surfaces.gh, 449 KB

Permalink Reply by Jay Ramos on April 4, 2016 at 8:38am

This is amazing, thank you very much for sharing!

One question: why does the first definition generate shades which are tapered according to the sun vector? (see image) How can I avoid that? And is there a way to internalise your component in GH? man this really made my day...hours saved!

Permalink Reply by Antonello Di Nunzio on April 5, 2016 at 5:41pm

Hi Jay Ramos,

I have done a lot of tests about the inclination angle and I rewrote the component with new formulas, and now it is very good. You can see this by running solar hours simulations, the facades will be black without horizontal white stripes, or by checking the angles on Rhino.

Above, an image to answer to your question about avoiding from sun vectors.
I added a new function for it.

Despite I removed the option to connect curves because I have to work more around them, I think the component is complete enough.

If there are some bugs, please let me know.

Best

Antonello

Attachments:

example_Horizontalshadingsurfaces _newVersion.gh, 413 KB

Permalink Reply by Chris Mackey on April 11, 2016 at 1:19pm

Antonello,

This is going to be really useful once it gets integrated. I have played around with your file a bit and realized that your component is essentially the same as the shading designer except that you can specify a shdAngle when you connect up a sunVector (or a sunAltitude in your case). Right now, the shades are always horizontal when you connect a sunVector and this prevents people from using it for cases like that here unless you angle the shades like so:

Antonello, if you could integrate your current work in a manner that allows you to set the shadeAngle when someone connects up a sun vector, I think that will be the best of all worlds.

Let me know if you have any questions on this or on the shading designer.

Also, I noticed that you should give people the option of setting the angle of the shades by U or V. Otherwise, it is easy to generate shades facing the wrong direction like so and in the attached file:

-Chris

Attachments:

example_Horizontalshadingsurfaces_newVersion_CWM.gh, 419 KB

Permalink Reply by Antonello Di Nunzio on April 11, 2016 at 3:04pm

Hi Chris,

Thanks for you test and your reply! you tested the older version, the new version is a little bit different, but the main function is similar.

I made the latest version with Abraham's contribution, he gave some very good ideas, and we have been working together on them.

I rewrote the component and now the system to generate pergola shades is a function.I have never tried the component by connecting depths instead Vectors. Because to run correctly the component needs to have shading surfaces with a depth and shape according to the sun vectors.
But we can work around the depth as well. We have to find another method to find the right size of the pergola shades.

the component generates the best dimension of pergola shades to block the sun rays.
It accepts multiple shading surfaces which are generated by vectors and it creates a big pergola shade for all of them (we have to modify a bit this part), or it finds the shading surface with the max sun Altitude or with the max solar radiation value.
It is not completed yet, there are some small bugs to fix about the merge mode and a couple of good Abraham's ideas which we have to elaborate

I am agree with you about the integration also in order to reduce the number of components.

We can do in this way, if Abraham is agree, we can complete this component with all functions and then we can try to integrate it into LB shading designer, thus when all functions work fine. What do you think about it?

Best

Antonello

Permalink Reply by Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari on April 11, 2016 at 4:09pm

I know that I'm very late to the party but if I'm not mistaken you can do all of this with the current component if you just use optionaPlanes input. Remove the rotation angle if you want them vertical.

Attachments:

shadingDesigner.gh, 390 KB

Permalink Reply by Abraham Yezioro on April 11, 2016 at 11:20pm

The party is getting good :-)

One of the final outputs expected, by now, is having the pergola keeping the contour of the merged vectors.

We are working on this with Antonello and having good progress.

So i think that by now it is a good idea to keep going until we have a working version. Then we can merge it with the shadingDesigner ... or not, because we are also starting to work in a more general shading device calculator that i started to develop and this pergola thing can, maybe, be a part of it.

-A.

Permalink Reply by Antonello Di Nunzio on April 15, 2016 at 5:15am

Hi Mostapha,

I think your function which projects points on plane through vectors (also not perpendicular to projection plane) is the best solution in this cases, a great function!
I've played a bit with your system, to make the same thing you need to use some native components of GH, only this could be a problem for someone.