Shading Controls

*This tutorial is written for Rhino 5.0+ (Windows) and DIVA 2.0+, and assumes you have Rhino & DIVA installed.

*Written June 2013 by Nicholas Kramer, Krame407@umn.edu

General Information About Shading Controls :

Shading controls give you the ability to calculate the need of shading devices on your model.  There are 2 different types of shading calculations you can run in Diva. They are as follows:

Conceptual Dynamic Shading - Treats every window in the model as though it is covered with blinds, without any modeling necessary. This calculation is limited in its ability as it is only able to consider the blinds open or closed, the open state allowing 100% of the light into the space while the closed state 25% of the direct light through as a diffused light.

Detailed Dynamic Shading - There are two main options under Detailed Dynamic Shading each having very different options and modeling needs. They are as follows:

Switchable - Switchable calculations use radiance materials to represent varying states. The most common being electrochromic glasses, which are already built  into  Diva.

Mechanical - Mechanical calculations used modeled Rhino geometry in varying states to determine the needs for each state. Each state must be modeled on a separate layer in Rhino and assigned radiance materials through Diva. In the example file louvers are used,but the geometry modeled can be any type of shading device including, but not limited to, Venetian Blinds or Curtains.

*NOTE -  All Shading Control calculations can only be run with a Climate Based metrics simulation, which can be found under the Daylight Grid Based tab in Metrics.

Getting Started :

We will start with the file example-Shading Controls.3dm, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

Once the file has opened in Rhino, the first step is to go through setting your Location, Nodes and Materials. You can find a tutorial on how to do this on the Diva for Rhino webpage located here.

Conceptual Dynamic Shading

Step 1 : Open Shading Controls

Start by navigating back to the Materials tab and select Shading Controls.

You should now have this window open on your screen. There are three tabs in this window; No Dynamic Shading, Conceptual Dynamic Shading, and Detailed Dynamic Shading.

Select Conceptual Dynamic Shading.

Step 2 : Selecting Nodes

Under the Conceptual Dynamic Shading tab, select Choose Workplane Nodes. This will bring you back to the Rhino interface where you can select the Nodes you want. Once you have selected all the nodes you want press Enter.

(*image, shading control ui highlighted button)

After you have selected the desired nodes hit Enter to return to the Shading Controls window, once there select Submit.

Step 3 : Running the Simulation

It is now time to run the simulation, Choose Metrics from the Diva menu within Rhino.

Navigate to the Daylight Grid-Based Tab, and choose Climate-Based.

Select the Metric and Occupancy Schedule you would like to run. Set any other settings you would like to adjust and click Run Simulation. For this tutorial we will use Daylight Autonomy for our Metric and weekdays9to5withDST.60min.occ.csv for our Occupancy Schedule.

Step 4 : Getting Your Results

After the simulation has been calculated, a page should open in your default internet browser that should look similar to this.

*Note - An internet connection is NOT required to load this page.

This can be useful in determining how effective your window are, we can see that a lot of shading is needed during the winter months and in comparison a fair  amount less during the Spring, Summer and Fall. Adjusting the height or size of the windows may help balancing the the shading schedule.

Detailed Dynamic Shading : Switchable

*NOTE - The radiance material Glazing_Electrochromic_Clear_60 must be applied to the desired layer for the calculation to work properly.

Step 1 : Open Shading Controls

Start by navigating to the Materials tab and select Shading Controls.

You should now have this window open on your screen. There are three tabs in this window; No Dynamic Shading, Conceptual Dynamic Shading, and Detailed Dynamic Shading.

Select Detailed Dynamic Shading.

Step 2 : Selecting Nodes

Under the Detailed Dynamic Shading tab choose Select Nodes. This will bring you back to the Rhino interface where you can select the Nodes you want. Once you have selected all the nodes you want press Enter.

Step 3 : Choose Shading Type

From the Shading Type drop down select Switchable (electrochromics)

Step 4 : Choose Operation

From the Operation drop down select the desired mode of operation. For this tutorial we will just use Manual.

Manual - Manual operation that aims to keep the space at the ideal light level defined by the user.

Automated Thermal Control - Allows the user to control the change of states based on the amount of lux hitting the glass.

Automated Thermal Control with Occupancy - Allows the user to control the change of states based on lux readings hitting the glass, with the addition of an occupancy sensor that turns the glass back to its clear state when unoccupied.

Automated Glare Control - Allows the user to control the change of states based on a glare threshold hitting the glass as well as by the amount of lux hitting the glass.

Automated Glare Control with Occupancy - Allows the user to control the change of states based on a glare threshold hitting the glass as well as by the amount of lux hitting the glass, with the addition of an occupancy sensor that turns the glass back to its clear state when unoccupied.

Step 5 : Setting the Glazing States

By default there are two Glazing States, Base Geometry Layer and Glazing State 1. If you would like more than the default of two Glazing States, choose Add State to add the desired amount of states.

Under the Base Geometry Layer choose  Glazing_Electrochromic_Clear_60 to represent the glass in its default state of clear.

Under the following Glazing States choose the other levels of transmittance desired. By default Diva has two other states for electrochromic glass, they are as follows, EC_Tinted_30 and EC_Tinted_02. New radiance materials must be created to allow for different states.

If you are choosing any other operation mode besides Manual, you must also set the lux level which each state turns on and off at. This can be found directly to the right of the Glazing State drop down.

Once all Glazing States have been selected click Submit.

Step 6 : Running the Simulation

It is now time to run the simulation, Choose Metrics from the Diva menu within Rhino.

Navigate to the Daylight Grid-Based Tab, and choose Climate-Based.

Select the Metric and Occupancy Schedule you would like to run. Set any other settings you would like to adjust and click Run Simulation. For this tutorial we will use Daylight Autonomy for our Metric and weekdays9to5withDST.60min.occ.csv for our Occupancy Schedule.

Step 7 : Getting Your Results

After the simulation has been calculated, a page should open in your default internet browser that should look similar to this.

*Note - An internet connection is NOT required to load this page.

We can see from the shading schedule that the electrochromaic glass is at each state for a fair amount of the year. However, a large percentage of the time it is in its most shaded state. This tells us another level of shading may be beneficial to the building. Another option would be to reduce the amount of glazing to reduce the light levels in the building.

Detailed Dynamic Shading : Mechanical

*NOTE - Radiance materials  must be applied to all modeled geometry layers for the calculation to work properly.

Step 1 : Modeling the Geometry

For Mechanical Dynamic Shading, the geometry of the shading device must be modeled in every state you wish to calculate, every state modeled needs to be on its own layer . The file example-Shading Controls.3dm on this page has louvers modeled at Horizontal, 30° and 60° already on separate layers.

In the example file the louver states are under the Dynamic Geometry layer and turned off by default. To use them simply turn the layers on. All states of the geometry MUST be visible for the simulation to work as seen in the example below.

*NOTE - Using electrochromic glass with dynamic geometry over it may cause undesired results.

Step 2 : Open Shading Controls

Start by navigating back to the Materials tab and select Shading Controls.

You should now have this window open on your screen. There are three tabs in this window; No Dynamic Shading, Conceptual Dynamic Shading, and Detailed Dynamic Shading.

Select Detailed Dynamic Shading.

Step 3 : Selecting Nodes

Under the Detailed Dynamic Shading tab choose Select Nodes. This will bring you back to the Rhino interface where you can select the Nodes you want. Once you have selected all the nodes you want press Enter.

Step 4 : Choose Shading Type

From the Shading Type drop down select Mechanical.

Step 5 : Choose Operation

From the Operation drop down select the desired mode of operation. For this tutorial we will use Manual.

Manual - Manual operation that aims to keep the space at the ideal light level defined by the user.

Automated Thermal Control - Allows the user to control the change of states based on the amount of lux hitting the glass.

Automated Thermal Control with Occupancy - Allows the user to control the change of states based on lux readings hitting the glass, with the addition of an occupancy sensor that turns the glass back to its clear state when unoccupied.

Automated Glare Control - Allows the user to control the change of states based on a glare threshold hitting the glass as well as by the amount of lux hitting the glass.

Automated Glare Control with Occupancy - Allows the user to control the change of states based on a glare threshold hitting the glass as well as by the amount of lux hitting the glass, with the addition of an occupancy sensor that turns the glass back to its clear state when unoccupied.

Step 6 : Setting the Glazing States

By default there are two Glazing States, Base Geometry Layer and Glazing State 1. If you would like more than the default of two Glazing States, choose Add State to add the desired amount of states.

Under the Base Geometry Layer choose the layer that has the geometry modeled in its default state. For the louvers in the example file this would be Horizontal

Under the following Glazing States choose the other layers of modeled geometry. For the louvers in the example file, this would be 30° for Glazing State 1 and 60° for Glazing State 2.

If you are choosing any other operation mode besides Manual, you must also set the lux level which each state turns on and off at. This can be found directly to the right of the Glazing State drop down.

Once all Glazing States have been selected click Submit.

Step 7 : Running the Simulation

It is now time to run the simulation, Choose Metrics from the Diva menu within Rhino.

Navigate to the Daylight Grid-Based Tab, and choose Climate-Based.

Select the Metric and Occupancy Schedule you would like to run. Set any other settings you would like to adjust and click Run Simulation.

Step 8 : Getting Your Results

After the simulation has been calculated, a page should open in your default internet browser that should look similar to this.

*Note - An internet connection is NOT required to load this page.

(*image, Output Image)

Click HERE to return to the top.