Geometry Questions

3 posts / 0 new
Last post

Hello All,

I am tryinig to model a 2 story building has a below grade storage floor and
an above grade office area. The office area is doughnut shaped with an
internal courtyard. My questions are:

1. How would I model the internal courtyard? I have created an AutoCAD
drawing as a background image to trace. However, because eQuest requires
you to set the vertice points counter-clockwise, I am unable to enclose
the courtyard without missing a portion of the outer office space.
See attached image for what I mean. Any advice?

2. For the below grade portion of the building, is there anyway to model
this floor without creating an entirely new "shell" within the wizard.
Since the below grade footprint is different from the upper story
footprint, I am not sure how to model the upper and lower stories
differently without creating an entirely separate "shell."

Any help would be great. Thanks.

--
Patrick J Keeney

Patrick Keeney's picture
Offline
Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: 200

Only way to model two different floor plans is to have two separate shells.

For your other problem, if you trace the outside of the building, and then
when creating your zones leave the interior courtyard empty then the wizard
will not create any space/zones there. Once in the design mode, delete your
interior walls around the courtyard and create your exterior walls in their
places. This is the easiest method that I have been able to come up with
thus far in my experiences.

Rob

rdh4176's picture
Offline
Joined: 2011-02-14
Reputation: 0

Hi Patrick!

1. Make the "slice" 1 inch wide (making the omitted office space a
negligible area), and make the "cut" faces adiabatic in the second
wizard screen (right click the perimeter wall edge), after defining
zones. This avoids extra envelope surface area/loads.

2. I would make a second shell if the footprint and zoning is
significantly different. For each shell, specify 1 floor above or below
grade at the first wizard screen.

Rob's suggestion is a good alternative to consider and one I've used
before for different reasons: You will end up with interior walls for
the "courtyard" facing zones, as he's describing, which means there are
extra steps to create exterior walls/windows after the fact in detailed.
I personally find the "slice" approach a time saver overall since it
tricks the wizard into automating all the actual exterior surfaces...
ultimately the "right" approach is whatever you're most comfortable
with.

An extra caution looking elsewhere in your screengrab, from personal
experience: always be careful to lock to your CAD vertices! "Close
enough" can trip you up down the road...

~Nick

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

Nick-Caton's picture
Offline
Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: 805