Creating a Simple Project¶
This tutorial walks you through creating a simple, two-bedroom project using plan2eplus. This tutorial assumes you have completed the steps for installation and configuration. We begin by adding the needed imports.
from plan2eplus.ezcase.ez import EZ
from pathlib import Path
from plan2eplus.ops.subsurfaces.interfaces import Dimension, Edge, Location
from plan2eplus.ops.subsurfaces.user_interfaces import (
Detail,
EdgeGroup,
SubsurfaceInputs,
)
from plan2eplus.ops.zones.user_interface import Room
from plan2eplus.geometry.domain import Domain
from plan2eplus.geometry.range import Range
from plan2eplus.visuals.simple_plots import make_base_plot, make_pressure_plot
Creating the Plan¶
Creating a new case begins by initializing an EZ object. This will hold a Pythonic IDF object in memory, allowing us to add on step by step.
After initializing the case, we create a simple two-room plan. The height of each room is defined to be 3 meters, while each of the rooms are 10m x 10m. We use Domain and Range objects to simplify the process of describing the room's geometry since both rooms are rectangular.
After initializing the rooms, we add the rooms to the case as zones.
case = EZ()
# Add rooms to the plan
height = 3 # m
domain_1 = Domain(horz_range=Range(0, 10), vert_range=Range(0, 10))
r1 = Room(0, "room1", domain_1, height)
domain_2 = Domain(horz_range=Range(10, 20), vert_range=Range(0, 10))
r2 = Room(1, "room2", domain_2, height)
case.add_zones([r1, r2])
Adding windows and doors¶
To add windows and doors (subsurfaces) to the model, we first have to define their geometry. plan2eplus enables us to define where on the wall we want to place the subsurface using the Location object. This Location aligns the bottom middle of a theoretical door with the bottom middle of the wall it will be placed on. See placing subsurfaces for more details. We also define the Dimension. Finally, we let the program know that this detail is for a door by creating a Detail object with the location, dimension, and type_ of "door".
We repeat a similar process for windows. We then create a simple dictionary that maps the name of the detail to the Detail objects we have created.
door_location = Location("bm", "SOUTH", "SOUTH")
door_dimension = Dimension(width=0.75, height=1)
door_detail = Detail(dimension=door_dimension, location=door_location, type_="Door")
window_location = Location("mm", "CENTROID", "CENTROID")
window_dimension = Dimension(width=0.5, height=0.5)
window_detail = Detail(
dimension=window_dimension, location=window_location, type_="Window"
)
details = {"door": door_detail, "window": window_detail}
After creating the details that describe the geometry of the subsurface, we can add doors and windows to the case as edges. We must distinguish between edges in-between zones and edges between zones and the interior. To let the program know which edges correspond to which subsurface detail, we create EdgeGroups that reference a key in our dictionary of details.
Finally, we can create a SubsurfaceInputs object that holds information about all the edges and the details of their geometry.
interior_edges = EdgeGroup([Edge("room1", "room2")], "door", "Zone_Zone")
exterior_edges = EdgeGroup(
[Edge("room1", "NORTH"), Edge("room2", "NORTH"), Edge("room1", "SOUTH")],
"window",
"Zone_Direction",
)
case.add_subsurfaces(
SubsurfaceInputs(edge_groups=[interior_edges, exterior_edges], details=details)
)
Adding constructions¶
We can add default construction materials by simply calling the add_constructions() method. To learn more about creating custom construction sets, see construction sets.
At this point, we can visualize the case with the following code, which will give us a 2D view of the plan.
(TODO: add image of base plot.)
We can see the edges we have added and the paths that flow would theoretically follow. However, the doors and windows are greyed out. This is because they are not yet part of the Airflow Network. Our model will not consider flow passing through them.
Adding the airflow network¶
We can fix this by activating the Airflow Network in our case. Here, we rely on the default configuration, but you can explore further configuration options in Airflow Network.
Now, when we visualize the case, we see that the doors and windows are distinguished, indicating they are part of the AFN.
Running the case¶
Finally, we can run the case and visualize results. Here we save results to a folder called sample_project, but it can be named anything you like.
We can see the results by looking at a plot of the pressure and flow in each room.