Modelit: Overview Tutorial: Step-By-Step Instructions That Show You How To Use Modelit

ModelIT: Overview Tutorial
Step-by-step instructions that show you how to use ModelIT
IES Virtual Environment
Copyright 2015 Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. All rights reserved.

No part of the manual is to be copied or reproduced in any form without the express
agreement of Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited.
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Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 3
1.1. What is ModelIT? ....................................................................................................... 3
1.2. What You Need to Know to Get Started ..................................................................... 3
1.3. This Tutorial ............................................................................................................... 3
2. Creating a Simple Model ................................................................................................... 4
2.1. The Viewport .............................................................................................................. 4
2.2. Create Prism .............................................................................................................. 5
2.3. Create Extruded Shape .............................................................................................. 7
2.4. Create Pyramid Create Pyramid ................................................................................. 9
2.5. Create Cylinder ........................................................................................................ 10
2.6. Adding Glazing to a Model ....................................................................................... 11
2.7. Adding a Hole to a Surface ...................................................................................... 20
2.8. Applying "Simple Model" to Application .................................................................... 22
3. Creating More Complex Shapes ...................................................................................... 23
3.1. Prism With Explicit Dimensions ................................................................................ 23
3.2. Extrusion With Explicit Dimensions .......................................................................... 26
3.3. Extrusion With Curves .............................................................................................. 30
3.4. Editing Vertices ........................................................................................................ 34
3.4.1. Alternative Method ............................................................................................. 37
3.5. Cutting Object .......................................................................................................... 39
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1. Introduction
1.1. What is ModelIT?
ModelIT is the model building component of the <Virtual Environment>. It allows the
user to create the 3D models required by the other components of the <Virtual
Environment>.
The <VE> is a project oriented system. The "project" contains all the information
relevant for whatever application is the eventual goal(s), this is also known as the
Integrated Data Model (IDM). ModelIT is an essential component in this process,
allowing the user to create the 3D geometry model that is at the heart of this data.
These models consist of arbitrarily shaped spaces with windows and doors
connecting both internally and externally. Holes (also referred to as superfices) may
also be incorporated into surfaces. Spaces may be created graphically and/or by
manual input. DXF files can also be imported and used as underlays for zone
creation.
1.2. What You Need to Know to Get Started

Standard conventions for manipulating files are used throughout the <VE>. Standard
conventions for manipulating windows (moving, resizing, closing, etc.) are used
throughout the <VE>. Ask your IT manager for help if any of these processes are
unfamiliar to you.
ModelIT can only be run from within the <VE>. To get an understanding of the <VE>
see the document "<Virtual Environment> User Guide" which explains the various
startup options.
1.3. This Tutorial

This tutorial contains step-by-step instructions that will show you how to use
ModelIT. They show the typical sorts of operations that are carried out to create
geometry models for the <VE>. Topics that are relevant in the context of what we
are doing are introduced as we go along. For example, before we create a simple
prism we need to what "lock settings" are active. It is perhaps useful to read this
document at the same time as you run the program.
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2. Creating a Simple Model

This chapter goes through the procedures used to create a simple model.
2.1. The Viewport

In order to simplify things we will only use the single viewport option. By default we
get the following view:
The red cross-hair in the centre of the viewport is the model origin (0, 0), also note
the "View Selection" is set to "Plan".
Click on the
current grid.
button to pop-up the "Grid Settings" window which shows the
Click on the
status.
button to pop-up the "Locks" window which shows the current
Since we are happy with these settings we will proceed to the next step.
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2.2. Create Prism

This option is activated by the
button in the model toolbar. This pops-up the
"Shape Settings" window, from this we can name our prism, and define the base
plane level (0m) and the height of the prism (3m). Note the "Segments" field is
inactive since it does not apply.
We click the left mouse button near to the model origin, remembering that in the
locks settings the grid option is active. This selects the point (0,0) as the first corner
of the prism. As we move the cursor a rubber-band rectangle will follow the cursor
with its origin fixed at the (0,0) vertex. When the cursor is positioned at the
diagonally opposite corner position we can click the left mouse again to create the
prism. If you move the cursor around you will see that it does not matter which
corner of the prism we create first. If we make a mistake in selecting the first corner
of our prism we can cancel this by clicking the right mouse button. Having created
this prism the command remains active until we select some other option.
Here is our first diversion:
Cancel the "Shape Settings" window. Go to the view toolbar and click on the "View
Selection" options and select the "Axon" option. The image in the viewport changes
to this view of the prism.
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You will notice that in the "Axon" view a lot of the toolbar options are no longer active
e.g. the shape options (Extrude, etc.) and editing options (copy, move, etc.). These
options are only available in a 2D view e.g. "Plan", "Front", etc.
If you look at the "Model Browser" (by default at the left of the ModelIT workspace)
you will see that the prism we have created has been added to the "Model".
When we go back into the "Plan" view, you will notice that the view has automatically
been re-scaled to fit the prism:
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We can use the

"Zoom Out" button to re-scale the image so that we can
create our next object. As another diversion you can experiment with using the zoom
buttons
2.3. Create Extruded Shape

button in the model toolbar. This pops-up the
"Shape Settings" window, from which we can edit the required parameters (same as
prism).
We digitize the shape using the left mouse to click on the required grid points (the
right mouse can be used to delete the last vertex). When we have digitized the last
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point (as shown above) we can either use the "Close Shape" button to complete the
extrusion, or clicking on the first vertex has the same effect.
Time for another diversion:
We have created two objects a prism and an extruded shape. If we click on the
"Model Viewer" button
, we get the following window pops-up:
This gives a "shaded display" view of the objects we have created, since the default
view is not very interesting we can change this by dragging the left mouse button from
left to right to rotate the view (press and hold the left mouse button while moving).
Experiment with using the different navigation options
model.
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to move around the
2.4. Create Pyramid

button in the model toolbar. This pops-up the "Shape
Settings" window, from which we can edit the required parameters (same as prism).
We digitize the base of the pyramid as for an extruded shape, and when we close the
shape we then locate the point of the pyramid. Note the pyramid above has its base at 3.0
metres which is the height of the prism.
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2.5. Create Cylinder

button in the model toolbar. This pops-up the "Shape
Settings" window, from which we can edit the required parameters (same as prism). Note
that the "Segments" field is now active, this represents the number of segments in the 360
degree arc.
Note also we have changed the grid to 0.5 metres for both x and y. We select the centre
of the circle by clicking the left mouse button. When we move the cursor the circle rubberbands getting larger and smaller as we move away or towards the centre. To keep control
of the size of the circle it is perhaps easiest to move either horizontally or vertically along
the axes from this centre position. When we have the desired circle we click the left
mouse button again to create the cylinder. Note that the cylinder base is at 4.0 metres
which is the height of the extruded shape.
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2.6. Adding Glazing to a Model

We have created a simple model with 4 zones, to which we now required to add glazing.
There are a number of ways of doing this. Firstly we select the cylinder by clicking on
the
button, or click on the cylinder in the "Model Browser". When an object is
selected it is highlighted (drawn in red and each vertex is identified).
When a single object is selected a lot of options become possible (copy, move, etc.). In
particular we are interested in the
up the following window:
"Edit Glazing" button which we click. This pops-
For this simple model we are going to use the "Add by Percentage Area" option, we
change the "% Area" field to 100, and activate this choice by clicking the "Apply" button.
We now close this window and activate the "Model Viewer" button.
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Another method of creating glazing is as follows:

Select the extruded shape, click the
"Move Down One Level" button to move from
the Model level to the Surface level (see section 2.6 "Levels of decomposition" in the
ModelIT User Guide). When you do this the viewport will change to only show the
selected object (usually in "Axon"), and the selected object will expand in the "Model
Browser".
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Select the required surface (either by selecting from the viewport or from the "Model
Browser"), go down another level using the
from the Surface level to the Opening level.
"Move Down One Level" button to move
Again the viewport changes to show the selected surface in a normalized view.
You will notice that the

"Add Door",
"Add Window" and
"Add Hole" buttons
are now active. Click on the "Add Window" button (by default it is in "Rectangular" mode).
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In the viewport click on the grid point which is the bottom left corner of the required
window and then the top right corner (the rectangular window will rubber-band from the
first vertex).
The window can be created from any corner to the opposite.

We remain in this mode until we select another option. Create two more windows on this
surface:
We can now go back up a level using the
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"Move Up One Level" button.
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Select another surface:
Go down to the Opening level. Activate the "Add Window" option. Now instead of drawing
the required window click into the "Key-in Field". Type in the string "dx=1.0,1.2" followed
by enter, this will take this co-ordinate as the first corner of the window. Type in another
string "dx=2,1.6" followed by enter, this co-ordinate will be used as the second corner.
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Note that we are looking at the surface from the inside (see next image).
We go back up a level and select another surface:
Notice that this surface is partially adjacent to the prism (the surface has been split into
two adjacencies external and internal connected to the prism), when we go down to the
Opening level we can see this.
We use the "Key-in Field" to create a window first corner "dx=0.05,0.05" and second
corner "dx=0.9,0.9".
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We now change to select mode using the

"Select" button and select the window we
have just created (this is highlighted in red). You will notice that the editing buttons ("Copy",
"Move", etc.) are now active. Go into the "Lock Settings" window and de-activate the
"Endpoint" option (this is not essential but it makes it easier). Click on the
"Copy"
button. Go to the bottom left corner of the surface (which is also a grid point) click and drag
from there to the next grid point along the x-axis (horizontally). This will create a copy of the
window.
Notice that both windows are highlighted in red i.e. both are selected.
We repeat the copy operation by returning to the bottom left corner and dragging two
more windows (this time moving two grid widths horizontally).
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We repeat this operation twice more (this time vertically) to copy the window across the
whole surface. The top row of windows will be external and the bottom three rows internal
glazing.
We could have created the internal glazing on the adjacent surface of the prism in a similar
way, i.e. it makes no difference which of two adjacent surfaces we use (although it is usually
easier to create on the smaller surface).
We go up to the Model level and select the prism. Go into the
"Edit Glazing" option.
Select the third tab - "Add by Height/Width/Spacing". Edit the "X-Offset" and "Y-Offset"
values to 0.05, the "X-Spacing" and "Y-Spacing" values to 0.1 and the "Height" and
"Width" values to 0.9. Accept these values by clicking the "Apply" button.
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If we go down to the Surface level we can see that the external surfaces of the object
have been covered by glazing.
We go back to the Model level and select the pyramid object. We activate the "Edit
Glazing" option and apply 80% glazing to the sloping surfaces of the pyramid. To do
this we have to edit the "Min. Tilt" value to 40 (the sloping surfaces have a tilt of 45
degrees).
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2.7. Adding a Hole to a Surface

We have one more task to finish the simple model we are creating. At present there is
a solid surface between the pyramid and the prism, we want to remove this surface.
Select the pyramid and go down to Surface level, select the base of the pyramid and
go down to Opening level. The surface is normalised, activate the
"Add Hole"
option. In the same way that we have created windows, we create a rectangular hole
that covers the whole surface.
We have to repeat this process for the surface between the extrusion and the cylinder.
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2.8. Applying "Simple Model" to Application

To run SunCast on the simple model we have just created, in the "Solar" section of the
"Application" tab select the "SunCast" module.
This starts "SunCast";
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3. Creating More Complex Shapes

In this section we will add to our repertoire for creating shapes.
3.1. Prism With Explicit Dimensions

If we have to create a prism which is 4.8 metres long and 6.4 metres wide, the easiest way
to do this is to use the "Key-in Field" option. Activate the "Shape Settings" window and edit
the fields to the required values. Digitize the bottom left corner of the prism, in this example
at the model origin, and then go into the "Key-in Field" and type in the string "dx=4.8,6.4",
this creates the required prism.
An alternative method is to change the grid to some value that fit both the x and y
dimensions. The model origin is easy to identify by the red cross-hair. The other corner of
the prism can be located by looking at the value in the "Co-ordinate location" field, which
changes as we move the cursor across the viewport.

Another and possibly more complex way to do this is as follows. With the grid dimensions
set to 1.0, digitize a prism to the nearest grid, in this case x = 5 and y = 6. Select this prism
and go down to the Surface level. In the "Mode selection" field select the "Edit" option. This
pops-up the "Edit Space" window, select the "Edit Vertices" tab from this window.
From the list of vertices select those with an x value of 5.0 (click on a vertex to select it and
use the <ctrl> button to add others), as selected vertices are highlighted in the viewport.
Input a vertex shift value of -0.2 in the X field.
We activate this change by pressing the "Move Vertices" button. The co-ordinate values in
the list are updated. We repeat the operation by selecting vertices with a y co-ordinate value
of 6.0, and input a vertex shift value of 0.4 in the Y field (changing the X value back to 0.0).
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This edit gives us the prism we want.
The technique just described is probably too complex for this example (the first method is
much more appropriate), however the technique can be applied in other situations and it is
useful to introduce it here in a simple example.
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3.2. Extrusion With Explicit Dimensions
The initial technique as used above to create the prism can also be applied to extruded
shapes. In this example we start by digitizing the first vertex at the model origin. The next
point is 5.6 metres along the x-axis, which we create by inputting in the "Key-in field" the
string "dx=5.6,0". This gives the following:
We now type in the string "x=8,2" (we could also have digitized to this grid position).
We now input the string "dx=0,2.5"

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We now input the string "p=2,45", this defines a line of length 2 metres at an angle of 45
degrees (polar co-ordinates). The standard conventions are used for the input of angles [0
degrees is East and positive angles rotate anti-clockwise].
We now input the string "dx=-4.25,0"
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We now input the string "p=4,225"
We create the final vertex by digitizing to the grid co-ordinate (0,5).
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We close the shape by typing 'c' in the viewport window.
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3.3. Extrusion With Curves
When creating an extruded shape at any time after the first vertex you can activate the
"Draw Arc" option. The "Arc Settings" window pops-up allowing the user to edit the "Sweep"
and "Segments" values. The rubber-band line to the next vertex changes to the
cursor,
which indicates that the user should select the centre of the arc. This distance from the last
vertex gives the radius of the arc and together with the input values defines the arc.
Input as above defines the following arc. Click the right mouse button to cancel this option
and return to conventional digitizing.
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Note from the above example that positive "Sweep" angles are clockwise and negative are
anti-clockwise. We digitize a few more vertices and then re-activate the "Draw Arc" option.
If we click the left mouse button again we get another set of arc segments from the same
centre position.
We exit from the arc option and manually digitize the next vertex. We re-activate the "Draw
Arc" option and change the "Sweep" to +90. With the selected arc centre we get the
following arc.
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We continue and finish with the following arc.
To summarize the arcs we have created to create this extrusion look at the following image.
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We manually digitized the first two vertices then activated the

"Draw Arc" option, we
defined A as the centre of the arc and specified a "Sweep" of -90 with 6 "Segments". This
generated the vertices labeled "1" to "6". We then canceled the "Draw Arc" option, which
remains active, by clicking the right mouse button. We manually digitized the next three
vertices and re-activated the "Draw Arc" option selecting vertex B as the centre of the arc,
this creates the next 6 vertices. We click the left mouse button again to continue this same
arc with another 6 vertices. We cancel the arc option and digitize the next vertex. We reactivated the "Draw Arc" option and edit the sweep to +90 without changing the segments
value. When we select the centre of this arc at vertex D, the arc is created in a clockwise
direction. We cancel again and digitize the next vertex. We re-activate the "Draw Arc" option
for the final time with the same parameters with vertex E as the centre. Note that the radius
of this arc is bigger than the previous arcs. To close the extrusion we cancel the arc option
and manually digitize on the first vertex, which completes the process.
This "Draw Arc" option can also be used when digitizing the base of a pyramid.
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3.4. Editing Vertices
In this example we have created two cylinders, a smaller cylinder on top of a larger, both
having the same number of segments, as shown below.
We want to edit the top surface of the larger cylinder to fit the upper cylinder, note that
although this changes the geometry of the object, topologically it is the same.
We select the lower cylinder and go down to the Surface level and select the "Edit" option,
we go into the "Edit Vertices" tab:
Set the viewport to a "Plan" view, select the first vertex on the top surface of the object:
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Now click the

"Edit Vertex" button in the top left corner of the window, this enters a
mode where the selected vertex can be dragged to the required position (the "Locks" should
be set to "Vertex" in this example).
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The selected vertex is snapped on to the equivalent vertex in the inner cylinder. This process
is repeated for each vertex in turn until the upper surface of the cylinder has been shrunk to
the inner cylinder.
Note that this process may be performed along any axis, with the only restriction that the
final edited object must consist of planar surfaces i.e. surfaces cannot be warped.
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3.4.1. Alternative Method

Another method of editing vertices is to select vertices by clicking the left mouse near to the
vertex to select, use <ctrl> left mouse to add vertex to selection list. Selected vertices are
highlighted as shown:
Use "Vertex shift" option to move vertices:
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3.5. Cutting Object
The truncated conical shape created above by editing the vertices could also have been
created by the following method. Create a cone, pyramid with circular base, the same radius
and number of segments as above.
Select this object and go down to the Surface level and into "Edit" mode. Set the "Cutting
Plane" to a horizontal cut at Z=10.0.
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Go into the "Separate Composite Space" tab and select both the composite spaces and click
on the "Separate" button.
This splits the divided object into two separate objects, the top of the cone can be selected
and deleted to give the required object.
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ModelIT: Overview Tutorial

Step-by-step instructions that show you how to use ModelIT

IES Virtual Environment

Copyright 2015 Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. All rights reserved.