Settings window
Through this window, you can set/change the values of all the parameters used in the application. It relates to the display and viewing options, the Solar Access/Confort calculations parameters and some other miscellaneous options.
In the top bar
of the window, you can select one of the settings groups.
The
button confirms the selected settings.
If you check the
field, the currently applied values are saved in the configuration file and will be used in futur sessions.

This group contains parameters used in the rendering procedures of the active scene or the results. It relates to colors, motion, dispayed items, results style,...etc
Render options :
- Default surface color : Set the default color applied to surfaces when loading a model file.
If the loaded file format contains this property (.URB only), it will be applied to the surface color.
- Light tone in shading mode : It is the base color for all the surfaces. The brightness changes according to the orientation of each surface wih respect to sun radiation direction and view point location.
- Surface border : Color used for surface border in hidden views.
- Sky color in spherical views : Color used to fill the sky circle in spherical projection views.
- Main view background color : Background color of the main view pane.
-
Text color : Color used to draw text in the main view pane.
-
The perspective view angle is used in perspective projections to simulate the angle of vision "through" the main view pane over the dipslayed scene.
- Grid step in scene units [scene units]
when the grid is displayed.
Show/Hide :
This windows manages the parameters used in the solar access and comfort evaluation analyses.

(
) below : means that if you change the value of that parameter, the results of the computed solar access analyses are no more valid.
Parameters :
- Latitude [-90...90 deg] (
) : latitude value of the analysed site.
- Longitude [-180...180 deg] : longitude reference value of the analysed scene, used in time values conversion.
- Altitude (
) : altitude reference value of the analysed scene (meters).
- Global hindrance at Sunrise and Sunset [0...90 deg] (
) : Angular heights (in degrees) at sunrise and sunset of global sunlight obstruction. These values are used to re-calculate the sunrise and sunset time values ! 
- GMT offset [-12...+12 h] : Time offset with GMT, used in time values conversion.
- DayLight saving : Calendar dates of the beginning and the end of daylight saving, used in time values conversion.
- Apply to : The user can apply the above defined values :
- as default values to be used on newly loaded scene
- on the currently selected scene
- on All loaded scenes in the workspace
- Default surface reflection (Albedo) : default reflection rate assigned to the surfaces (percent %). Use the Surfaces properties window to change this value for any surface.
Days :
The solar access analysis can be performed for any day of the year.
You can use the
tool button to pop up a calendar panel
where you can select the day to add to the list.
The
tool deletes all the selected days from the list.
Note : As mentioned in the settings panel, only the days selected (
) are used in calculations
Monthly data :
In this section, you can set the monthly values of different parameters used to calculate the direct and diffused energies in clear sky conditions. The equtions used are based on the work of R. DOIGNAUX, Royal Institute of Meteorology, Belgium and J. TELLER LEMA-University of Liege, Belgium.
Weather data file : |
TownScope calculates the maximum values for the direct energy, diffused energy and the possible sunshine time using the
first four values of the monthly data described above (Humidity, Turbidity, Edhcs/Ethcs and Clouding rate).
However, some of these parameters (especially Edhcs/Ethcs) are often difficult to get from weather data stations. |
On the opposite, direct energy, diffused energy and sky cover values are much more frequently available.
So TownScope allows you to specify these last values directly through the weather data file. |
The weather data file is an xml style text file. It uses tags to indicate the data sections :
- day : represented by month:day value for the calculated day.
- direct : 24 hourly values (on the hour [0...23]) of direct solar radiation on horizontal surface in w/m2.
- diffused : 24 hourly values (on the hour [0...23]) of diffused radiation on horizontal surface in w/m2
- skycover : 24 hourly values (on the hour [0...23]) of sky cover factor in percent.
|
If you check and if the calculated day is in the specified weather data file,
then TownScope will use those stored daily values to set the maximum values for direct/diffused energy and for real sunshine hours.
|
You can change and load any other weather data file by choosing one of the listed files : .
This list is automatically generated by TownScope and shows all the files present in the Annexes/meteo/* subfolder of the software installation directory.
|
Since version 3.1.0 TownScope provides you with a graphical interface to edit and to manage weather data files :
Using the actions menu
you can :
- Create a new weather file
- Edit the selected file
- Delete the selected file. This operation deletes the file from your hard disk, so the file is definitely lost.
The file edition window is represented below :

- Select the day and the value (direct, diffused, sky-cover) to edit.
- Use the mouse to click&drag the values bars (one for each hour) in the graphical area.
- You can also adjust the highest 'possible' value using the
buttons.
This is useful for setting small values.

The options available in this section :
- Terrain triangulation method : you can select the method used to generate a terrain triangulation from loaded 3D points. Three possibilities are offered (in this version) :
- Smooth gridding : the terrain is generated over the (X,Y) bounding box of the scene points. You can set the two steps, one for each axis, used in the grid generation. This method uses the super triangle technique and smooths the terrain slopes.
- Nearest neighbours Gridding : the terrain is also built over the bounding box grid, but, the calculated Z value of any grid point only depends on the two nearest 3D points of the scene.
- Delaunay triangulation : the standard Delaunay method. No new points are created.
- Keep triangles when loading 3DStudio (c) files : 3DStudio (c) files use triangles to represent surfaces. If you uncheck (the default) this option TownScope will try to merge successive, adjacent and co-planar triangles into unique larger surfaces.
- Results temp directory : you can choose the directory where the application stores the results files for any analysis. By default, this directory is : ApplicationDirection/ts_temp
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