Hi!

In order to be prepared for the class at Lightfair 2012, please spend 5 minutes filling the following survey to help me fine tuning the content of the class:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SKFPK5V

You will find below the relevant links to the various softwares we will use in the class, as well as a link to the handout document.

Thank you and see you soon!

Pierre-Felix

Class handout:

link to pdf – 7 Mb - (right click and save target as…)

Software install:

3ds Max Design 2013 or 2012:

http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/trial/

(Note, 3ds Max Design is the only version that has lighting analysis in it)

Autodesk Revit Architecture or MEP 2013 or 2012:

http://usa.autodesk.com/revit/trial/

(Note, since 2013, you can get Revit 2013 which contains all flavors of Revit in a unified package

Eulum Tools for Revit 2012 (optional):

 (Note: we will see an overview of the workflow but we will not spend a lot of time in Eulum Tools so this is purely optional)

Download and Install:

• Click on this link (or paste into your browser):  http://www.elumtools.com/index.php?id=14
• Once the webpage opens, click on the Download button
• Fill out the necessary information and click Submit
• An email will be sent to the same email address with a link to download the software
• Once the email arrives, click on the link to download. Once the webpage opens, select Download. Note: Save the download, DON’T run!
• Once downloaded, double-click on the setup file to install. Note: You must have Revit 2012 MEP or Architecture installed and activated! ElumTools will NOT work with earlier versions of Revit or Revit 2013.

Activate Trial License:

• Start Revit 2012 MEP or Architecture
• Click on ElumTools from the main ribbon in Revit
• Click Register Trial
• Once the webpage opens, enter your email address and click Submit. The Trial License Key will be emailed to you
• Once the email arrives, click on ElumTools from main ribbon again and select Activate Trial
• Copy and Paste the License Key from the email into the License Key textbox and click Activate
• The Trial Version should now be activated for 30 days!

Below is the official description for each one. If you do plan to attend, feel free to drop me a line via my contact form with ideas and topics you want me to cover in those classes, its always good to get fresh ideas from attendees! See you there!

Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation

5/7/2012 – 9:00 am to 5:00pm

This session will provide an overview of the tools available to you in the Autodesk products family for exploring, defining and validating lighting projects. Focused on the interoperability of Revit and 3ds Max Design, you will learn what is possible to achieve with Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for electrical lighting design as well as daylighting design.

An overview of the rendering capabilities or mental ray and iray will be provided as well as production oriented strategies to integrate lighting photometry and solar information for lighting studies. Tips and tricks will be provided to support project workflows where the design elements are changing and evolving on a regular basis.

Learning Objectives:

• Get a general overview of BIM technologies applicable to lighting design projects.
• Learn about interoperability strategies to adopt when translating data from one software to another.
• Learn about capabilities and limitations of lighting simulation technologies.
• See production examples used in the context of real projects.

L12D08 - Challenges associated with Weather-Based Annual Daylight Simulations

Co-Speaker: Jack Bailey, One Lux Studio, NYC

5/8/2012 – 9:00 am to 12:00pm

This workshop will walk you through the various challenges associated with annual‐based daylight simulation that we experienced with our projects. From the data collection stage through the validation of weather data, to the development of custom tools to integrate window shades into annual simulation, we will present examples of how to successfully predict a building’s performance with regard to daylighting over a year.

Learning Objectives:

• Become familiar with metrics and guidelines associated with daylight simulation.
• Understand the capabilities and limitations of lighting simulation technologies.
• Gather a knowledge of existing tools for daylight simulation.
• Understand how occupancy and shading devices affect daylight performance.

1. Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation (Monday all day)
2. Challenges associated with Weather-Based Annual Daylight Simulations (Tuesday a.m.)

The official Lightfair 2012 schedule can be found here

The FBX import/link or 3ds Max does not create layers based on the file content.

Run this script on freshly imported Revit models via FBX.  It will move all objects on a Layer that corresponds to the Category and Family as illustrated:

It will also restore original Meta data into Parts which are imported without Categories Names, Family Names and Family Types Names.

This script is not a plugin and does not save data in the scene.  You only need to run it on demand.  Note that some entities imported via FBX do not contain meta data from Revit (this is a bug on the Revit side).  Those entities, typically railing posts, lights and parts will remain untouched and left on their original layer.

Note: this assumes that the meta data is available after the FBX import or link. In other words, using Combine by Material will get rid of the Meta information about families (because objects get combined togheter).

Click here to download the script

Or what about listing the type of object as well as its material name and type?

This can be done with a relatively simple MAXScript that you must install  under the \Scripts\Startup directory of your 3ds Max installation.

By doing so, the script will execute each time 3ds Max is launched and will  instruct the Scene Explorer to fetch data about your objects and create new columns that you can drag and drop in place:

• Material Name
• Material Type
• Object Plugin Type
• Layer Name

Save Target as… to download the MAXScript

Save Target as… to download the SceneExplorer.ini file that you can load from the Tools > Manage Scene Explorers dialog.

1. Fine-Tune Your Autodesk® Revit® Models for Autodesk 3ds Max®

• • Class handout here

1. Stump the Autodesk® 3ds Max® Champions

The measured color palettes can be exported from the Color Munki software as *.CxF files and read back in 3ds Max with the help of a plugin now provided by Xrite.

The plugin can be downloaded here.

The map plugin will work with mental ray and iray as well!

Autodesk University 2010: Color Management and Linear Color Workflow

We are trying to do a daylight analysis that includes some frosted glass or “kalwall” style skylights which diffuse the light into the space.  We can get the VLT (Visible Light Transmittance) values easy enough.  However, is there some way to accurately (or semi-accurately) account for the rays being dispersed and spread through the frosted glass? 

Simulating frosted glazing in 3ds Max Design for lighting analysis is doable.  You however need to know how to do it properly.  Here is how:

Some useful background information:

First, as opposed to Radiance, the A&D Material has a few internal “things” going on that you need to be aware.  The most important one is that the A&D Material performs internal energy conservation as follow:

Transmissivity wins over Specular Reflectivity which wins over Diffuse Reflectance.  On top of that, the Transmissivity is weighted against a Specular / Diffuse factor.  This factor is ruled by the Translucent color / weight controls in the interface.

In contrast, in Radiance, one can specify a material that is reflecting 100% diffuse and 100% specular while transmitting 100% of the light, leading to “creating” energy.  This is why the parameters of the Radiance materials cannot be plugged “as-is” in the A&D Material.

Translucent Panels:

We compared translucent glazing simulation in mental ray against radiance and measured data and got convincing results (see image) with the following settings:

Desired Diffuse Transmittance:  0.1621  (16.21% Diffuse – Diffuse Transmittance)

• Treat surface as a single polygon in the model
• A&D Diffuse Level:  0.0
• A&D Diffuse Color:  pitch black  (so no weighting is given to the diffuse reflectance)
• A&D Reflection | Reflectivity Level:  1.0
• A&D Reflection | Reflectivity Color:  pure white (the color is a multiplier, we need it to be 1.0 1.0 1.0)
• A&D Refraction |  Transparency Level:  1.0
• A&D Refraction | Transparency Color:  pure white (the color is a multiplier, we need it to be 1.0 1.0 1.0)
•  A&D Refraction | Translucency Checkbox : ON
• A&D Refraction | Translucency Weight: 1.0  (we want it fully translucent)
• A&D Refraction | Translucency Color:  0.1621 0.1621 0.1621 (the color is a multiplier, we need it to be set to the desied transmissivity level “as-is”, equally for all RGB components)
• BRDF | Custom Reflectivity Function: ON
• BRDF | 0 Deg Refl:  0.0
• BRDF | 90 Deg Refl:  1.0
• BRDF | Curve:  ~5  (we need to approximate a typical Fresnel curve)
• Advanced Rendering Options | Thin-Walled : ON

Some important notes: 

• While the illuminances will carry through properly on light meters, the glazing appearance may not look “natural” in “pretty picture renderings”.   It seems that there is currently a limitation with the appearance of the surface when it is hit by light:  its resulting luminance won’t be correct (AFAIK) so glare analysis based on luminance measurements won’t be convincing.
• The following image shows a graph comparing 3ds max, radiance and measured data.  Ignore the “3ds max 2009 SP1 Initial Submission” curve, this is representing a case where our material settings in 3ds Max where wrong, which we corrected later on – in fact, we forgot to turn off a layer so we had 2 panes of glass on top of each other…).  The green curve is what we need to look at….

My goal was to create a document where the main features of 3ds Max are grouped togheter to create daytime / night time renderings of buildings without overloading it with cumbersome step-by-step “click here/ click there” instructions.  It gives some tips and tricks around NPR (Non-PhotoRealistic) rendering as well.

Here it is:

mentalray.for.aec.renderings

This group maintains a database and publishes this data via a program called Optics 5. From Optics 5 you can then export a Radiance Material (*.rad file), which can be interpreted
as mental ray A&D Material parameters.

To convert Optics 5 data into A&D Material suitable for lighting analysis, export a glazing or glass definition as Radiance (*.rad) from Optics 5. You will find this command under File | Export to Radiance File.

Once the file is exported on disk, open it in Notepad and search for a section that looks like this:

void BRTDfunc B530_front
10
0.245 0.281 0.340
0.169 0.197 0.187
0 0 0

The color coefficients (RGB) for the ideal specular reflection corresponds to 0.245 0.281 0.340. The color coefficients for the ideal specular transmission corresponds to 0.169 0.197 0.187. Those values will need to be used as a basis for the mental ray A&D Material.

How to use the provided Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to convert to the mr A&D Material.

To correctly convert specular reflection and transmission from a Radiance material to a mr A&D Material, we need to take into account internal energy conservation methods that are built in the mr A&D Material that are not factored by the Radiance material. In other words, numbers can’t be “plugged-in” as is.

To help you with this task, we developed a Microsoft® Excel® software spreadsheet that will let you do this precisely. The spreadsheet can be downloaded here.

Limitations:

• The Radiance Materials exported from the Optics 5 database does not take into account angular dependency: A Fresnel falloff curve is assumed so metallic-coated glazing systems may be less precisely simulated.
• The Optics 5 database contains optical data measured spectrally. The exported Radiance materials and the A&D materials use RGB colors which are a crude approximation of the visible light spectrum. Therefore, lighting simulations are done within limitations of RGB colors.

It will also control Text objects to display the current Time and Date of the Daylight System:

Here is a video demonstrating its usage:

You can download the tool here.

1. In Revit, go in the 3D view you will export to FBX
2. Edit the Graphic Display Options
3. Specify a Location and Time that matches your project settings, for a single day:

   

4. Export to FBX
5. Import in 3ds Max

Your Daylight System should now match the Revit model in Location and Time.

This video demonstrates how to do it:

This usually happens when you changed your Desktop Resolution and re-launched 3ds max.

What causes this problem?

The root of the  problem comes from the fact that last used dialog positions are stored in the 3dsmax.ini file.  Unfortunately,  none of theses dialog are coded in a way that they check if they are restored in a visible portion of the desktop, resulting in many cases as “out of reach” locations.

How to resolve the issue?

Until this bug get resolved in 3ds Max directly, there is a neat little utility that you can use to bring back “missing dialogs” in the visible portion of your screen:  SnapWindows.  Just run it while running 3ds Max to reset the  location of floating dialogs.

Click here to download the Wordfile.txt file for UltraEdit (Right Click | Save Target As…)

Install it in your UltraEdit installation folder:

When opening a mi file you should see something like this:

Always verify your data otherwise your project can go wrong – here are a couple advices on the topic:

IES file can contain wrong information: double check them!

I have once seen a manufacturer using the wrong values in their IES files.  I had to contact them and demonstrate that their data was wrong. It turned out that one of their engineer made a mistake with their database system where North American IES files where published using European measurements. That basically means that errors can come from anywhere in the process. Double check your work!

In the ideal scenario, you need to get a physical sample of the luminaire in your office, measure intensities with an illuminance meter and compare with the IES data provided to you in a simple test scene.

Do the numbers match up?  You are good to go. They don’t match up? Keep reading..

Check the 3ds Max scene units:

This is a typical trap: wrong units, wrong light intensities reported on light meters!

3ds Max and Revit has bugs too!

There is a issue  with the IES file reader that can affect you in rare occasions.  The bug has to do with a certain “feature” of the IES file format that some manufacturers rely on. Let me explain:

The IES file format is divided in two main sections: a header section and a data section:

In the header section, there is a special ”bit” that instruct the software to either use the “raw” data or apply a multiplier to it. For example, a manufacturer might have measured a luminaire only once with a 100W lamp in it. Knowing that the same luminaire with a 200W lamp** would emit twice as much light, the manufacturer could publish a different IES file based on the same measurements and simply state that the “raw” data should be multiplied by a factor of 2.0 by changing this special “bit” in the file as illustrated:

For some reason, 3ds Max and Revit are ignoring this multiplier and always read the “raw” data from the IES files, resulting in incorrect simulations. The work around is to use the built-in multiplier (dimmer) feature of the photometric lights:

Note about linear and area lights:

In many occurences, I am asked to perform lighting analysis reports in spaces designed with cove lights.  Unfortunately, this is still not possible to do precisely - and this problem has not been solved by the industry yet!

  There are currently two major problems with linear and area lights in lighting simulation softwares:

1. First, the IESNA standards for photometric measurements assumes that luminaires are measured from a certain distance, making any calculated points inside this distance mathematically inaccurate. If you search for “Near Field Photometry” or “Far Field Photometry”, you will find plently of information on the subject.
2. Second, 3ds max (and Revit btw, as both share the same code for rendering) still has issues to deal with linear and area lights calculation making them unreliable photometric-wise.

As I write these lines, cove lighting situations cannot be mathematically correct with photometric files in 3ds Max: you will have to do some guess work when working with theses scenarios.

**I know, a 200W lamp does not emit twice as much light than a 100W lamp that was only for keeping the example simple.

To get rid of those edges, you can hide them from the editable mesh panel:

Or better, use a Maxscript tool that will let you hide them all at once.

Click here to download the MaxScript

Usage: Select all your EditableMesh objects and execute the script. The script will only affect selected EditableMesh objects so the selection can contain lights, lines, cameras: they won’t be affected by the script.

The result:

Special Thanks to Chris P. Johnson who helped improving the speed and stability of the script on large models containing several instances.

In Revit you can schedule floor areas and estimate material quantities required for construction.  However, if you want to optimize quantities and placement of building supplies to reduce waste that might not be enough. Pricing estimates might not be accurate either.

To resolve this problem, I wanted to draw each plywood sheet and dry-wall sheet in place so I can get optimal positionning and precise quantities to be ordered. But what if we don’t want to affect the drawing plans? Here is a solution that worked for me, it may work for you as well.

 The concept:

Take advantage of building phases and phase filtering for views.

Example:

1. Add a project Phase at the very end of the list.  Call it “Building Supply Take Off” or something like that:

   

2. Duplicate a floor plan View and assign it to the newly created Phase:

   
   

3. In the newly created view, draw your construction supplies as if you where installing them in reality. Make sure they are also set to the  Phase we created previously. 

   In this case, I inserted 2′ x 8′ panels representing styrofoam insulation. I don’t really have to care about intersections as this is just something used to extract quantities and they will never appear on printed drawings anyways.

   

4. Finally, create a schedule that also filters entities for the “Building Supply Take Off” Phase.