Update 2017-08-18 ~ Is the Building Swaying in the Wind?? #6
Description
@ibpsa2017/core
Kowloon, Hong Kong - one of over three thousand locations available by selecting from a menu - showing 3D terrain, extruded 3D buildings, 2D map overlays, Sun path with analemmas and shadows, replaying 8,760 hours of US Department of Environment EnergyPlus Weather data , displaying direct normal radiance as position and brightness of Sun, wind speed and wind direction displayed as building skewing, with real-time zoom, pan and rotate - all screen-captured and saved as an animated GIF - all working in your browser, nothing to plugin or download - all free and open source.
Try it yourself: Analemma3 3D
The above animated data visualization is an intentionally irreverent, light-hearted rendition of data normally viewed thusly:
1974,1,28,1,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,9.4,8.3,93,102490,0,0,313,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,280,4.6,6,6,19.3,2100,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,2,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,9.4,8.3,93,102520,0,0,328,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,280,5.1,9,9,19.3,2100,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,3,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,9.4,8.3,93,102450,0,0,338,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,270,5.7,10,10,19.3,2100,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,4,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,9.4,8.3,93,102450,0,0,338,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,280,5.1,10,10,19.3,2100,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,5,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,8.9,7.8,93,102450,0,0,335,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,280,5.1,10,10,19.3,2100,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,6,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,8.9,7.2,89,102450,0,0,334,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,280,6.2,10,10,19.3,2100,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,7,60,?0?0E7_0E0?0?9D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,8.9,6.7,86,102490,0,0,299,0,0,0,999900,999900,999900,99990,290,6.2,2,2,19.3,77777,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
1974,1,28,8,60,?0?0E7_0E0?2A7D0?9?9?9?9?0?0?0?0?0?0?9?9?9?9,8.3,6.1,86,102560,0,0,306,58,0,58,999900,999900,999900,99990,300,1.5,8,6,12.9,4300,0,999999999,0,0.0000,0,88,0.000,0.0,0.0
US Department of Environment EnergyPlus Weather (EPW) data files provide 'standard days' of weather conditions for thousands of cities around the world. The values are very carefully prepared and agreed and approved by committees of specialists and scientists. The data is most often embedded in computer applications used primarily by designers and installers of heating and ventilating systems in large construction projects. This data for the most part never sees the light of day and yet is an essential element in the decision-making process of acquiring many billions of dollars of equipment. There's more text and links on the EPW Read Me page.
The above visualization of the EPW data currently serves no useful purpose. It was created just to fulfill a single promise.
I was recently a speaker at a workshop at Building Simulation 2017. It is my practice when I give a talk with demos that the conclusion of the talk should end with a fun, thought-provoking visualization that makes the target audience smile by seeing something they are very familiar with in an entirely new way.
And I did just that - almost. I created a 3D viz of downtown San Francisco that included the Ferry Building and the Hyatt Hotel where the conference was taking place In the demo I read an EPA data file and the weather data was displayed as follows: Radiance was the brightness of the sun, Humidity was shown as amount of fog. Dew point was shown by the whiteness of the ground. Temperature was a bit odd. It was displayed by the height of the buildings going up and down. Wind was was shown by by 3D arrow that changed direction and size according to wind speed and direction. It was a later version of this animated with much more happening.
The thing is that during the talk I clearly stated that I had really wanted to show the wind speed and direction by having the buildings sway. And If I say something like that - well - then I have to do it,
So ten days later: Bingo! Done! As you can see in the animated GIF at the top of this posts, hundreds of models are being skewed in 3D. OK, it's still just half-baked. But it's good enough for now.
Actually I am quite pleased with the effort. There really is a lot going on and the linear algebra to cause the swaying and adjusting building ground level to terrain elevation gets complicated. With every tick the sun updates its position and the weather advances an hour. With each advance hundreds of buildings sway fro and fro. And the overall display is updating at sixty frames per second ( note that the GIF only does 30 fps ).
So even though there's nothing particularly useful in this project, I learned great deal. And when I give my next EPW demo. I know I'll have a demo that will make people smile.
Credits
- EnergyPlus
- eco-envolventes - a research project at the Universidad de Piloto, Bogota, Colombia