Who Turned the Lights Out? Lighting Analysis with Autodesk Revit MEP 2012 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012

Transcription

1 Who Turned the Lights Out? Lighting Analysis with Autodesk Revit MEP 2012 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 Eric Bogenschutz BSA LifeStructures MP5719 In this class, we will discuss multiple different lighting analysis procedures. We will present an overview of the features of lighting calculations and analysis within Autodesk Revit MEP 2012, along with the use of the new Autodesk FBX file LINK in Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 to run point-by-point lighting analysis from your Revit model. Gone are the days of duplicating work over and over in different software packages. We will also look at the creation of a new light fixture, choosing the correct light source type, and placing that light source in the correct location within your families to guarantee accurate results. Flip on the light bulb (I mean LED), and watch as we demonstrate the new possibilities for lighting analysis. Learning Objectives At the end of this class, you will be able to: Create or edit a light fixture family to edit the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) file used in the fixture Use lighting analysis tools within Autodesk Revit MEP 2012 Use Autodesk FBX file linking in 3ds Max Design 2012 Create light meters in 3ds Max 2012 to display point-by-point lighting analysis Look at the horizon of 3 rd Party Tools About the Speaker Eric is leading the building information modeling (BIM) initiative at BSA LifeStructures and works daily with architects, engineers, and other design professionals to gather input toward changes that affect the architecture, engineering, and construction industry across the board. He has spoken at Autodesk University for three years on various topics and is an Autodesk certified professional in AutoCAD Architecture 2009, Revit Architecture 2010, and Revit Architecture Eric graduated from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, with a BS in environmental design. ebogenschutz@bsalifestructures.com

2 Definitions: Analysis: to examine carefully and in detail so as to identify causes,key factors, possible results Lighting: the arrangement of lights to achieve particular effects Link: anything serving to connect one part or thing with another; abond or tie 2

3 Sun-Path Lighting Analysis The sun-path tool is a completely interactive tool that allows you to see what impact the building orientation, the time of day and the time of year has on your building. It utilizes the internet mapping service to set the location of your building and place it at the correct latitude and longitude. This is a tool that allows users to generate quick studies to create better more efficient designs, simulating a specific day or month or year. 3

4 The Sun Settings Dialog box is where you set the location, date, time and choose what type of Solar Study you want to complete. The single-day or multi-day study has the ability to create an animated movie where you can choose the interval of each frame to display the movie file. These are powerful presentation items that can be generated quickly to help gain a competitive advantage during a presentation or just to show the capabilities of the software that your firm has standardized on for the clients work. 4

5 Revit MEP Spaces Spaces within a Revit model can be used for a multitude of different energy analysis tasks, but focusing directly on lighting analysis there are a few built in items that we can extract incredibly easily. To place spaces go to the Analyze ribbon and select the space tool. When placing Spaces change the upper limit and offset values to the floor above and the offset to 0-0. This allows the spaces to all adjust if the Levels are modified later on during the project. 5

6 By using the Space Naming Utility provided by Autodesk; space Names and Numbers can be sync d with the Names and Numbers of Rooms that have been placed by an Architect using Revit Architecture. The image to the left is the dialog box that comes up when the utility is activated. The image to the right displays the real-time settings that can be used in a schedule, or in some additional ways which will be demonstrated later, within a color plan being driven by a Color Fill Legend. Some of the items that are important to note are the Average Estimated Illumination which displays the average amount of Foot Candles throughout the space. This is useful for a high level overview, but as you will see later, we might need some additional details and point by point information to fine tune our results. The Lighting Calculation Workplane height can also be adjusted to changes the results along with the ceiling, wall and floor reflectance levels. 6

7 Color Plans using Color Fill Legends On the Analyze ribbon, the Color Fill Legend tool can be used for a large array of tasks, but we are going to focus on the ability to see graphically some general lighting information. The two examples are Average Foot Candles and Watts /FT 2. The Color Fill Legends will update realtime as you switch light fixtures or add/remove them within the space. When you click the Color Fill Legend button you will be presented with the dialog to the left. Select OK to place the legend. Then you will select the legend and choose Edit Scheme to make some edits to what we want displayed in the view. 7

8 In the example above Average Estimated Illumination is selected, By Range was also selected and additional ranges were added to the list to allow for color variations. The fill pattern and color can also be customized per scheme. The results of this example and one showing Actual lighting Load per Area are displayed on the next page. 8

9 The image to the left display Foot Candles by Range. The image to the right displays Watts/FT 2 9

10 Exporting an FBX File for use in 3DS Max Design 2012 The exporting process is quite simple; the most important part is to save your current 3D view for use later when changes have been made to your model. The steps for exporting your FBX file will be displayed in the next few images. Tip: Depending on how your model is setup, you can turn off worksets while in your 3D view to eliminate exporting items that aren t needed. 10

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12 Importing FBX into 3DS Max Design 2012 as a Link After we have exported the FBX file from Revit, we can reference it into 3DS Max Design. A new feature in 2012 is that you can now LINK FBX files into Max. If items change in the model the entire process within Max doesn t need to be recreated each time. Whether this is applying materials, or settings for placing light meters, the model and its elements will update after a reload of the FBX file. In the past all current work would be lost and the user would need to start over! This is a HUGE time saver, for both High-End Renderings in Max and items such as the lighting analysis tools. 12

13 After selecting your FBX file, you can choose a Revit Preset for how Max will interpret the Revit data. This is more important when working on renderings and applying materials, but can still be useful as a way to combine the information from Revit. 13

14 Creating Point By Point Analysis After importing the FBX file into Max, we can begin the process to generate the point by point lighting analysis. The first step after importing is to go to the tools menu and open the Light Lister. This will allow us to select all the lights and turn them all on. (By default the lights will be turned off after the link process.) The image below shows the settings to use within the light lister tool. 14

15 The next step is to adjust settings for the Daylight System. The Lighting Analysis tool requires a daylight system in the file and turned on to function properly, so the next few images will go over how to change the Daylight System to nighttime settings to be able to analyze only artificial lighting. 15

16 Now we can begin the process of placing a light meter into the drawing to perform the actual lighting calculations. The image to the left displays the settings of the light meter after it is placed in your file. The size can be changed either within this window or on-screen within the viewport. The Length and Width Segs control how many sub-divisions will be placed across the respective axis. Keep in mind, the more sub-divisions, the more accurate, BUT the more detail the longer it will take to run the analysis. I recommend starting out with smaller values to test general lighting and increasing the number to fine tune results. Also, keep in mind that you need to adjust the height of the light meter to be placed at the correct floor/height within your building model. 16

17 Using the tools from the Lighting Analysis Menu. (See image below) 17

18 The max value of the range will most likely need to be adjusted to display a better range of values. Once the calculation runs and the ranges have been adjusted the images below are an example of an image you will see as a result of the analysis. This analysis is fully interactive as far as changing the ranges and even the ability to change between Pseudo and Logarithmic ranges that will have an impact in the color ranges seen on screen. Tip: Not only can you view this data in plan, but a camera can be placed to view these results in a 3D image as well. It s as easy as placing a camera! 18

19 To be able to further control what data is seen on screen the grid and text overlay can be turned off. (See image below) 19

20 Finally, an image can be rendered using the actual building materials within the scene. Materials can be changed to see what impact the differences in color, texture and finish will have on the reflectance/refraction of the light within the space. This will impact the lighting levels along with the ability to change between Total or Indirect or Total Illuminance. These items (Shown on the previous image) can also be changed on the fly. Original Rendering 20

21 After an original rendering is produced, you can even overlay lighting points on top of the actual rendering. The amount of points can be changed real-time to increase or decrease the accuracy. After this process has been completed, changes made in the Revit model can be re-exported and then imported back into 3DS Max Design 2012 to re-run a new analysis. 21

22 3 rd Party Tools Coming to Market ElumTools: The ElumTools Revit 2012 Plugin is quite a powerful tool to begin to run your lighting analysis from within the Revit Environment. 3D View from ElumTools: 3D View With Color: 22

23 Color Plan From ElumTools: As you can see this has the potential to be an incredibly powerful tool that enables the use of the Revit model being produced for Construction Documents to be used to define the end result to owners in new ways that haven t seen these types of images in their standard design process and are looking for additional information to meet project, environmental and government needs/requirements. Owners today are looking for more and more information to make sure a project design is meeting expectations, utilizing the model information in as many unique ways as possible is an extremely powerful and time saving tool. Thank you for your time! 23

24 ANY QUESTIONS???? 24