Wall with too many windows

[as123dfg]

Hi. 

I imported building from revit. I have there the wall with many windows. In visualisation in ecotect this wall is transparent. When i deleted windows and imported again, wall looks normal. But in both of instances when i selected this wall, ecotect show that it is a wall. I wonder if it count this element as a wall or as a window. 

[Pennetier1]

Hi as123dfg, 

This "transparent" wall occurs in Ecotect when the child objects to that wall object - in your instance the windows - are out of bounds with the wall object.

A couple of things to check:

1. Make sure your widows objects are indeed WINDOW elements in Ecotect.  They should be transparent.

2. Make sure the window objects are within the wall object: if they are outside the wall object by just a few mm, the wall will become transparent and the window would appear red in the 3D editor.  It looks like they might be below your wall object as seen in your image.

3. Select your window objects and check in the Selection Information control panel that they are indeed child of the wll object (that will be a number).  If not, select all the windows AND the wall and clisk Crtl + K to link them together.

I hope that helps.

Let me know if you have more questions on this topic, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

Cheers,

[as123dfg]

Hi,
Thank You for reply. I would like to give right solution, but i don.t have. I checked all issues which You gave above. Windows are linked with walls.
I solve this problem by deleting one of this windows. It was third from left. When I deleted them, wall became normal. When I deleted other window, nothing has change. So it was problem with this one. I was looking for a difference between this windows, but i didn't found.
I will write if I find better solution.

I attach my file. May be You find something. 

Regard,
Patryk Kołun

[as123dfg]

I have another problem. I don't understand this. I made solar access anllysis. How is it possilble that, part of roof, is not illuminated, when part around them is the most illuminated. The same with window and wall. 

[Pennetier1 · Accepted solution]

Hi as123dfg,

Thanks for sending the file, it helps. The transparent wall is indeed caused by that door being too close to the bottom of the wall - move it 1/32" upward and it will fix the problem.  It could be that this particular door object in Revit is only slightly lower than the other doors for some reasons.

As per the solar analysis, this does not look quite right indeed, but this method is not quite accurate as Ecotect calculate the solar radiation on each object and depending on the accuracy selected, will average the radiation for each object.  The problem is that these objects have different shape and size and can sometimes receive shade on some of their area, while another object next to it receive shading in a different way.  Because the results are averaged over large surfaces, you can see these strange results.  

Here is what I do for such analysis:

1. Create a new zone called "grid".

2. Select the surfaces you want the solar analysis to be done on, making sure these objects have their surface normals (check with Crtl+F9) facing up.

3. Go to the Modify menu > Surface subdivision > rectangular tiles

4. Set a size for the tiles; make sure there is an offset distance (in the direction of the surface normal) at least a couple of inches; you can experiment with the other options depending on your needs and model.

5. With the newly create "grid" selected, run the same solar calculations, but you can set the accuracy to only 1 point surface sampling.

Once the calculation is done, you will have a better view of where the radiation are hitting your surface since the calculation is done on single, smaller surfaces of same surface area.

Also, make sure your materials are consistent: some of your CEILING objects have ROOF materials.  Youwill have to correct that prior to running the calculation.

I hope that helps.

Let me know if you have more questions on this topic, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

Cheers,