Estidama Extension

Introduction

Estidama is a sustainable urban planning initiative developed by the Abu Dhabi Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities. Estidama uses a green building rating system called the Pearl Rating System that is utilized to evaluate sustainable building development practices in Abu Dhabi. The Estidama program is mandatory in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: all buildings must achieve a minimum 1 Pearl Rating, and all government-funded buildings must achieve a minimum 2 Pearl Rating.

We present here only the targets focusing on Daylighting for the 3 categories of building identified in Estidama (Schools, General or Residential).

Within Estidama the calculation of illuminance levels (lux) should be performed for 6 differents moments corresponding to "summer equinox and solstice" at 10am, 12am and 2pm (as specified in the standard).

The requirements for the 3 categories of buildings are:

source: The Pearl for Estidama - Building - Design & Construction - Version 1.0.

In its Estidama module DL-Light chains these 6 calculations to provide the aggregated result corresponding to the Estidama requirements. It also provides the 6 individual results to allow for further investigation to improve the project.

Because of these 6 chained calculations the aggregated results required by Estidama necessitates intense computation that may be compared to the calculations of 6 Daylight Factors one after the other. Moreover, Estidama indicates that simulation should be performed using 7 bounces of natural light.

Hence the calculation time needed is higher than for other metrics.

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How to use Estidama Extension

1. Open SketchUp model. Follow recommendations to prepare your model for DL-Light calculations.

2. Open Estidama dialog from toolbar or menu Extensions -> De Luminae -> Estidama -> Activate extension and enter the parameters of the calculation.

   

   Fields description:

   • Project name - Project name is used during export and for output filenames generation. The SketchUp model name is used by default.

   • Results - Directory where model will be exported for calculation. It should be an existing or a new directory where user has appropriate write/read privileges. When calculation is started model geometry and resulting files will be saved in estidama_output subdirectory.
     For SketchUp projects stored on network disk (Windows), see Work on a copy of the model.

   • Display - Calculation mode selection:

     • Estidama synthesis: the final Estidama status is displayed (summary of the 6 calculations).
     • Illuminance by date: a sub-menu is used to display the values of one of the 6 reference dates.
       

   • Details - The default selection is the standard 50cm grid:

     • 0.5m between sensors,
     • 0.5m minimum between sensors and edges of surfaces.

     DL-Light allows to choose:

     • the sensor grid applicable by default to all calculated surfaces,
     • different sensor grids for some surfaces ("exceptions" button).
     

     See sensors selection for more information on the choices of proposed sensors.

   • Ground albedo - Reflection factor of the ground. The value can be selected from the drop-down list or a custom value can be defined:

     
     

   • Requirements - Selection of requirements for one of the 3 building categories (Schools, General or Residential).

     

   • Location - Building location coordinates. Location can be based on SketchUp model location or be Custom. Below is dialog for Custom location definition.

     

   Note: the time zone is set to the default value "Asia/Dubai UTC+04:00, without DST". This setting can be changed in the preferences.

3. Define materials characheristics.

   Since calculation is done with validated Radiance tools it is necessary to 'attach' physically based material to each tag (layer) in SketchUp. Note that materials should be defined with their light reflectance and transmittance.

   

   Materials panel consists of two main parts:

   • SketchUp tag (layers) table contains the list of all layers defined in the SketchUp model. Each row contains a SketchUp layer name and its attached material name if any. If a row is grayed, it means that the corresponding layer is not visible in the model and will not be taking into account in the calculation. The table is updated in real time, whence the SketchUp model is modified.
   • Materials tree contains all material libraries available for DL-Light extension. Some of them are provided when extension is installed and others can be imported or created. Subtree 'Model materials' contains materials currently attached to SketchUp layers.
     The leed_lm83 library contains the default materials defined in LM-83.
     To explore available libraries and add new ones, see Material libraries dialog.

   To attach a material to a tag (layer), select a row in the table and either double-click on the chosen material in the tree or select the material in the tree and press Attach/Detach button.
   To detach from the tag (layer), select it and click Attach/Detach button.
   To revert to previous state press the Revert button.

4. The palette of false colors corresponds to the chosen display, Estidama status or illumination by date. The colors of the palette are editable.

   
   

5. After all data are entered, select one or more surfaces and press Render or button.

   As glazings are used for this calculation, it may be convenient to use the DL-Light select by layer dialog to select the areas to be calculated.

   

   Calculation time depends on the number of selected surfaces, the level of sensors details and model complexity.

6. When results are imported, calculated surfaces will have appropriate false colors and Palette is opened.

   Rendering for "Estidama synthesis" display:

   

   Rendering for "Illuminance by date" display:

   

7. Results analysis.

   • The Report dialog displays the distribution of results for current palette, and calculation parameters.

     Report presentation for "Estidama synthesis" display:

     

     Report presentation for "Illuminance by date" display:

     

   • Show/Hide Sensors and Values explores results directly in the model for each sensor.

     • Nota: the option "View / Guides" of SketchUp must be activated.
     

8. For further calculations on the same model:

   • To run calculation on surfaces simply select them and click Render .
   • It is possible to modify the calculation parameters: to change the density of sensors to improve the visualization of the results (for the whole model or a specific surface), to modify the color palette... Whatever the changes, use the Render button. Previously calculated surfaces will be updated with the new settings if needed.

   DL-Light uses a calculation cache algorithm. It automatically detects if a surface requires recalculation or if a previous result can be reused. By default, the cache keeps the information of the last 20 calculations (value configurable in the preferences).

9. Archiving results:

   DL-Light allows to archive all the results of a calculation: reports, textures and calculation steps (exported Radiance model, ...). This archive can be reloaded on the model, providing it is exactly the same model as during the calculation.

   See the page Archiving results for more information about this feature.

   • To archive the calculation results, click on the button Archive.
   • To load the results of a previous calculation, click on the button Load

10. Comparison of results

    The comparison of two archives is displayed in a special report:

    

    See the page Comparison of results for more information about the comparison of archives.

11. Snapshots:

    Current SketchUp model view with imported results can be exported with palette or without palette to png format. To explore created images user can open folder where they are saved .
    This option is not supported in trial version of the extension (see license information).

    

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