The orientation of each facade being determined by its position relative to the grid. Orientation: When you construct your physical building model, these will be aligned with a 3-dimensional grid. This is useful for some of the design functions, such as sizing of shading devices. The Date/Time input is used when modelling of a specific day is selected. Other parameters which can be set in this dialogue box:
Other Square One software uses these weather files. Though all these parameters may be available to Ecotect, it does not mean that they are all used by the software. Note that this loads in the following parameters. Load Climate Data to load a WEAther data file. More accurate values may be found using Meteonorm (the Find button in Version 4.0 appears to connect to a database of only Australian locations).
Click on the Map button if any of these are unknown. Model -> Date/Time/Location: Ecotect has a limited set of weather files. Menu instructions and buttons in the software appear in italics. For ease of writing, I have chosen in most cases to describe the traditional method.
However, you can load files of projects created with a registered copy of the software and learn about one aspect without having to enter all the data again.Īs with most modern software, the user interface permits two main ways of actioning the software: A traditional pop-up menu plus separate toolbars. You can download the software from the Square One website but you will not be able to save any work and you will be limited to 60 minutes use in any one session. You should make yourself familiar with the help menu and use it to extend your knowledge. The tutorial Input Data for Thermal Simulation looks at the different categories of data to be entered into a thermal simulator and here we look at applying these rules.Įcotect has an extensive help menu, but up to the release 4.0 a good but incomplete set of tutorials. Other tutorials will add further detail to its use in this capacity and also look at its other uses. The approach in this tutorial is to look at its use as a classical thermal simulator. You may find it useful to read this in conjunction with the tutorial on Input Data for Thermal Simulation.Įcotect is a very flexible tool which can be used to provide a variety of types of design assistance. L-e-s-s introductory tutorial for Ecotect l-e-s-s