HOURLY solar irradiation

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I would like to output HOURLY solar irradiation values for selected surfaces. The solar analysis can compute yearly cumulatives, so the hourly values must be computed anyway.

But since there is no obvious option to export them directly, i would like to do it with the Revit Python Shell and a script.

Problem: I dont find any documentation on the Revit INSIGHT api and/or objects and their names.

I cannot be the only one with this problem?

please help.

best regards,

Simon Schneider

University of Applied Sciences,Vienna

[scheerd]

Hello.

We've corresponded directly, but I also posted that info on this post:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/lighting-solar-analysis-forum/solar-workflows-tips-and-tricks-post-1/...

Solar Workflows, Tips and Tricks - post 1<>
forums.autodesk.com
The algorithms in Insight Solar are used in many Autodesk tools, including Insight Solar, FormIt Solar, and the Dynamo Solar package. For custom analyses that are not covered in Revit or FormIt, the best thing is to use the Dynamo Solar package. With that you'll be able to create Python scripts, ...

Perhaps we can communicate through there to share our findings.


David

[Anonymous]

thank you very much!

I've looked into Dynamo with the solar Analysis Package.

Although managing calculation points and the nested results are a hassle, it works just fine.

What i didnt find a solution for is how to effectively iterate through all 8760 hours of the day and aggregate the results, for that i am too much of a dynamo noob.

I only found some generic looping techniques with code blocks and py scripts, but i am unsure how to incorporate the solar analysis node with this.

I've attached my .dyn file. "all" i need is to loop through 8760 different "TimeStudy.Still" instances.

Best Regards

[scheerd]

One more point is that you can easily access hourly output values from Dynamo Solar.  It's actually pretty easy to use, so I'd encourage you to check it out.

Here's a link to my AU presentation, which includes some sample Dynamo graphs in the links:

http://au.autodesk.com/au-online/classes-on-demand/class-catalog/2015/revit-for-architects/as11611#c...

[Anonymous]

wait, is there something i am missing? because i was studying your class and used the graphs you provided, using the solarAnalysis.Analyze Node.

And although it is easy to obtain hourly values for a single certain hour, it is not obvious to me, how to obtain these hourly values automatically for a hole range of different hours - especially not from the examples provided in your class.

Sorry if i missunderstood, but what am i missing?

best regards simon schneider

[scheerd]

Yes, it's a matter of list management.

If you can do a single hour, simply implement a list of times to the TimeStudy input on the SolarAnalysis node.  The analysis will iterate through all the combinations of inputs.

Be sure to select the proper Lacing if you have multiple faces or weather or other input lists.

Also remember that the hourly data used for the input represents the cumulative irradiation for the hour previous to the data hour (for example if the 10am value is 400 Wh/m2, the actual irradiation over the hour varies over the hour, but the cumulative is 400 Wh/m2, and since it's a one hour period, that is the average irradiance over the hour).  So to use this for hourly analyses, we interpolate, assuming that the instantaneous irradiance for 10am is at 9:30.  There will be some slight variation from simpler methods, as most of them use the solar position at 10am for the 400 value (in this example), while we use a range of solar positions and interpolated solar values over the time span.  

Attached is a screenshot of a very explicit example.  There are cleaner ways of doing it, but this shows a way to input a list that is very explicit.