Preferences

DL-Light extensions are designed according to a general ergonomic principle:

• The main window allows to choose the key elements of the calculation (model file, type of calculation, period, ...). Organization of the information aims at reproducing observed professional approaches. This window is intentionally kept simple and shows only a minimal set of parameters.
• The additional parameters are a priori common to a series of calculations. They are defined in the preferences, and are classified into categories: global parameters, specific to an extension, ergonomics, ...
• The default values ​​of the parameters are consistent with professional standards.

This organization facilitates the handling of the tool in simple or recurring situations, while allowing fine adjustment of the calculation parameters. (As an illustration, the DL-Light version 12.0 preferences file contains 532 entries.)

Preferences can be opened from toolbar or from menu Extensions -> De Luminae -> [Extension name] -> Preferences.

Parameters are organized into groups:

• Global preferences - common to all extensions.
• Configuration of menus and toolbars - common to all extensions.
• [Extension name] computation - specific to the extension
• [Extension name] - expert tuning - specific to the extension
• Internal parameters - internal settings common to all extensions

To restore the default value of a parameter: click on the arrow to the right of the value.
To restore the values ​​of all the parameters of the current tab: click on the "Defaults" button.

Global preferences

Global preferences are common to all extensions.

In the trial version of DL-Light some options are fixed at their default value. For more details read License information.

• Number of parallel calculations - Maximum number of processes in parallel on the computer. The maximum is the number of CPU cores.
• Show warning messages - Switch on/off warning messages.
• Show switching extension message - Switch on/off warning messages before changing extensions.
• Confirmation of virtual layer status change - Switch on/off the confirmation message when changing status of layers of virtual surfaces.
• Enable automatic check for updates - Enable DL-Light to automatically check on De Luminæ site if new version is available. If new version is available user is informed, but not forced to download and install it.
• Sound notification - Play a sound when computation is done and duration in seconds is greater than "value". Set to 0 to stay always silent.
• Date format - Select the display format for dates.
• Display time zone abbreviations - Select the display format for time zone.
• Abbreviations of time zones - Customize the abbreviations of time zones.
• Calculation periods - Customize calculation periods (seasons dates). DL-Light allows you to set the definitions of the seasons and their display in the menus.
• Default reflectance - Reflectance of default material for surfaces without defined material.
• Take into account north angle - Take into account north angle parameter (shadow_info['NorthAngle']) for extensions involving Sun position (Sunexposure, Watt, Daylight Autonomy, Daylight Factor, SEPP65, ...).
• Cache directory - Folder used for temporary computations and cache.
• "Show only false colors", transparency level - Opacity of surfaces without result, from 0.0 (transparent) to 1.0 (opaque).
• "Show only false colors", remove shadows - Do not display shadows on surfaces when "Show only false colors" is set.

Configuration of menus and toolbars

This tab allows you to select the icons to display on the toolbars and the extensions to list in the DL-Light menu.

The configuration of icons is common to all extensions.

To take the modifications into account, restart SketchUp.

Calculation preferences

This tab contains the main settings for the active extension:

• Radiance settings for relevant extensions (Daylight factor, Autonomy, Watt, ...).
• Ergonomic parameters: automatic display of the report, content of the report.
• Graphic parameters: algorithm for false color textures.

Some parameters are present on all the extensions:

• Show report - Automatic display of the report after calculation.

• Grid names in report lines - Show the name of the sensors grid used for the surface, for all surfaces.

• Layer names in report lines - Display a "layer" column with for each surface the name of the layer to which the surface is attached.

• Load all at report opening - When opening the report, load all computed surfaces rows. Otherwise, click on a surface in the model to load the corresponding row in the report.

• Algorithm for false color textures - Setting the generation of textures. The indicators are calculated on a grid of sensors according to the Level of details, then these values ​​are interpreted for visual representation. Several algorithms are available, see page Interpolation algorithms

• Maximum texture size - Adjust the maximum size of textures generated. Warning: for size of 8192 or above, rendering time and memory usage increase a lot.

• Texture smoothing - Adjust the smoothing level of the textures.

• Size of snapshot images - Use a fixed width or the width of the SketchUp view.
  • Use fixed size - Width of the fixed size image (1600 pixels by default)
  • Don't use fixed size - The size of the exported image will correspond directly to the size of the model on the screen.

Advanced preferences

This tab contains settings that should be suitable for most situations.

• Min face area - Minimal surface area below which surface calculation is skipped as surface is considered extremely small. If this limit is set to zero, surfaces can still be discarded by the threshold distance to borders.
• Area limit for single sensor - Area below which a single sensor is generated for the surface.
• Virtual surface offset - Offset default value for virtual surfaces.
• Coverage area of sensors - Assign to each sensor the area corresponding to the nearest points of the plane (Voronoi diagram). The traditional alternative is to consider that every sensor represents the same surface which can lead to anomalies (corner sensors). For most standards such as BREEAM or EN 17037, it is recommended not to use this option and to consider that all sensors are equivalent.
• Maximum scale in px/m - Texture resolution in pixels per meter. Actual textures resolution is limited by both this setting and maximum textures size. For a large model (town planning), use a low value, for example 10 pixels / meter.
• Warning if many surfaces - Warn if surfaces to calculate is above that "value".
• Cache size - Number of calculations kept in the cache. The cache allows to accelerate successive calculations on the same project. Each extension has its dedicated cache. To clear the cache, put this value to zero and start a calculation.
• Complex period - Definition of the complex period used in 'complex' duration mode. See complex period configuration.

Internal parameters

This section provides access to internal software settings. These parameters should not be changed without support.

More than a hundred parameters are present in this category. They allow the software to be adapted to particular cases, but they are likely to evolve with new versions.