In this lesson, the most common inputs of creating rooms and systems are covered. Please note that "building geometry" means geometry from the programs point of view and not 3D geometry.
Creating Rooms
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Once we have completed our room templates, we can open ‘Create Rooms.’ There are a large number of tabs under ‘Create Rooms’ and the data entry can appear overwhelming at first. However, if templates have been modeled properly, most rooms will only require data entry under the ‘Single Sheet’ tab because all other values are determined upon selection of the ‘Room’ template. This shows us the importance of constructing solid templates.
Next, we enter the building geometry. As we enter data, it becomes evident why TRACE 700 cannot display the building: most data is only required in two dimensions and a visual representation requires x, y, and z data. In TRACE 700, the floor length and width is only understood by the program as a total square footage. As a result, you can simply enter the room square footage and 1. If it is a flat roof, you can simply select that the roof equals the floor area.
We move on to entering wall data. Keep in mind that a wall in TRACE 700 is what you might call an exterior wall-- a surface that is exposed to outdoor ambient and outdoor solar conditions. Interior walls are entered as partitions but do not need to be entered for most rooms. The wall height is brought in from the construction template, which leaves us to enter the wall length, direction, and window percentage or window dimensions plus the number of windows. The direction is entered by a number. 0 is north, 90 is east, 180 is south, and 270 is west. If you find this difficult to remember, hit the F1 key at any time in the single sheet screen to launch TRACE 700 and go to ‘Help,’ which will quickly tell you this. The TRACE 700 help is very detailed and the F1 key always brings up the corresponding screen which makes it easy.
Once walls and windows are entered, the room is basically complete because everything else, such as wall and window type, was determined by selecting the room template. It is key to note that all values from templates are displayed in red, while all values that have either been entered manually or overridden are displayed in black. All red values will change whenever the corresponding template value is changed. If a value has been overridden and you wish to return it to the template value, you can simply enter an asterisk in field, or select the bottom value in a drop down menu and the template value will once again be selected.