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Knowledgebase : Modelling
DesignBuilder’s geometry convention tools enable you to create one model and then easily switch between net and gross area/volume calculations, and also include/exclude construction thicknesses for internal partitions and floors etc. That means you may no...
DesignBuilder calculates behind scenes the length of each thermal bridge that is then multiplied by the corresponding Psi category. It will provide an equivalent length that can be found in the IDF object -see image below. It is on our development list t...
Using Offset Snap to Draw Perimeter Zones Did you know that you can use the Offset snap tool to draw partitions and voids parallel to existing walls and partitions? This snap can be especially useful when a string of partitions is to be located at a fixe...
ISSUE: When we click on edit or view option at the Model Data Grid View dialog in any of the building or HVAC data layout, the new dialog window does not appear and its not possible to view or edit the data. It seems the windows is opening in the backgro...
A common question on our Support Desk is about why partition and other internal surface attributes aren’t available for edit at zone level. The reason behind this relates to avoiding ambiguity when different settings are made in adjacent zones. To underst...
If a virtual partition is connected to another partition in such a way that the angle between them is obtuse, the virtual partition will take on an area-weighted thickness that’s derived from all the partitions in the partition stream that begins with an ...
When attempting to view .AVI files by double-clicking on them in Windows Explorer you may see an error like the one below. This error means that there are missing codecs for the default video player application (which is typically FILMS AND TV on Windows...
The Boolean tools are provided to help create geometries that cannot be created any other way. DesignBuilder Support recommends that you only use them for this purpose only and avoid the temptation to use the union tool simply to reduce the number of blo...
If you have two different wall constructions (e.g. brick and wood) in the same wall plane then you can define the secondary (less prevalent) construction using a sub-surface. To do this you should navigate down to the surface level to draw the sub-s...
If you have blocks in more than one building that you would like to combine into the same building you can use the "Transfer blocks" option from the Edit menu. This might be useful in cases you have started creating a project in two different files and ...
You can create a model which includes many repeated zones (for example a hotel where there is a standard room layout that is repeated over 100 times) easily by cloning a group of partitions. It is similar to cloning blocks. The steps for this process a...
The message 'additional plane required' can be generated following a cut operation and subsequent attempt to convert to building block when DesignBuilder is unable to generate the required geometry. This is caused by the outline block having a geometry ...
Some block shapes won't convert into a standard DesignBuilder block and turn brown in the model viewer when you try. A typical error message is: Error: Can't fit block slabs This can sometimes happen after having cut an outline block or having used the ...
In DesignBuilder, internal ceiling constructions are usually defined as the floors of the zone above, but when there is no zone above (because it is an adiabatic surface), the ceiling construction must be defined in a different way. To define the constr...
JPGs Some scanned bitmap/jpg images can be very large and DesignBuilder can have problems importing them. If you experience this problem with large jpgs you can reduce the size of the files by importing them into graphics editing software and exporting wi...
By default DesignBuilder recalculates zoning and surface adjacencies after partition is drawn and in large complex models this can slow things right down. This process can be speeded up by postponing the rezoning to a single operation after block partit...
When a window is deleted from a surface, either at building level or at surface level then the surface is considered to be a 'custom' surface and in this case the default facade data will not affect it and any changes made to the default facade model data...
It is possible to edit opening properties directly in v.1.9.2 beta and later. It is not possible to define different window types on a single surfaces in earlier versions because data for openings cannot be set directly - openings inherit from their paren...
There are 3 usual reasons for this: * The units are incorrectly selected. For example the CAD drawing may have been defined in millimetres and you have selected metres as the units. So when DesignBuilder tries to read the floor plan everything is 1000...
There are various ways that you can include a small single storey office zone within a full height warehouse using the various geometry tools available in DesignBuilder. For more details on this see: https://www.designbuilder.co.uk/helpv5.4/#Warehouse...
The message "Too many layers in combo construction" is usually generated when using DesignBuilder version 1.2 or 1.3 with 'Separate' constructions. In this case, the overall internal floor construction is built up from up to three composite constructions:...
You can rotate the site (including all of the buildings on the site) relative to North by using the Site orientation data at Site level on the Location tab under Site Details. For example enter 90 to rotate the buildings clockwise by 90°.This is the quick...
To change the location of your site go to the site level and click on the Location tab. From here you can select a location from the Location templates database. The selection you make will cause the site level data to be loaded with data from the Locatio...
You can include the shading effect of trees in your model using component blocks.  These can be positioned in space and the transmittance can be set using the construction model data. By default the transmittance of component blocks is 0, i.e. it is fully...
Changes in construction model data at building/block/zone level will not affect results if construction model data is already set at surface level (i.e. the construction data is shown in red when you click on surfaces in the navigator). It is the construc...
QUESTION_: I draw a block with dimensions 8 m x 6 m and height 2.7 m. So ground floor should have area 8 x 6 = 48 m2. But 40.345 m2 is on the menu. The wall thickness is 0.087 m so ground floor area calculated form inner dimensions is 45.6 m2. What does c...
Yes, you can draw windows, doors, vents, holes and opaque sub-surfaces by going to the surface level and using the draw tools. In the current version of the software (Version 1.2) you can only have one type of window per surface. This limitation will be l...
DesignBuilder can import 3-D CAD Building Information Model (BIM) data including the geometry of walls, windows, roofs, shading devices etc using gbXML.  This allows building models created in Revit, ArchiCAD, Microstation and other tool to be loaded into...
The templates tab is no longer accessible when a file is open in version 1.2. There was a problem with the mechanism in version 1.1 because DesignBuilder users could select model components in a template. When the model was no longer loaded the reference ...
DesignBuilder supports 2 types of CAD data import: * gbXML import for loading 3-D CAD models * 2-D DXF floor plan import The rest of this page discusses the 2-D DXF floor plan import. You can import 2-D DXF floor plan files created in AutoCAD or ...
Yes - you can select this from the International tab of Program Options dialog on the Tools menu.