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.

Display settings

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 :

• Analysis elements : if selected, all the elements will be displayed within the scene.
• Projection information : if selected, information about the used projection are displayed in the bottom part of the main view pane (type, view point, scale,..etc).
• Surface border in hidden mode : if selected, the borders of the rendered surfaces are also framed in a different color.
• Grid in parallel and perspective views : if checked the grid is displayed
• Surface texture (if available) in hidden mode : This version of TownScope supports textutres described in .OBJ (WaveFront format) files.
• Line smoothing (anti-aliasing) : In non hidden views if this option is checked surface borders are smoothly rendered.
• Sky sectors in stereographic UP views : if this option is selected and if the view projection is stereographic, then height angles reference values (deg) are also shown.

  Sky sectors :

   

• Vision sectors in stereographic views : when this option is selected, approximation of vision zones are displayed. The ellipses in the figure below show these zones : in blue is what you are looking at (focusing), in green is what you see, and, in red is what you perceive.

  Vision sectors :

   

• Polyline results in 3D mode : if selected, the results on a polyline element are rendered in a 3D mode using the same projection as for the analysed scene. If not, the results are drawn in Axes + curve style.

  3D results mode :

  Axes+curves results mode :

   

• Scene within the inspected results : only used when the analysis element is a surface or is a polyline with the Polyline results in 3D mode option on.
  If this option is selected, the scene is rendered with the results. If not, only the results on the analysis element are drawn.

Solar Access settings

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.

• Save by hour values (larger files)Check this option if you wish to save the values of each selected solar radiation (direct, diffused or reflected) for each hour (0...23), of each computed day, on each calculated point. If this option is checked the size of the results file will be much larger for solar access analysis (x 24).
• Use Isotropic sky diffusion () : used in the calculation of the diffused energy through the atmosphere.
  - If you select this option, the sky diffusion is isotropic, i.e. the diffusion rate is considered constant at any point on the sky half-sphere.
  - In reality, the atmosphere diffusion rate is higher at Zenith than on the horizon. So, if this option is NOT selected, the sky is not isotropic, and the diffused energy will be computed with different diffusion rates according to the position on the sky half-sphere.

  Sky diffusion :

  Note: using an isotropic sky is not a bad approximation. The calculations are slightly more complex in the case of an non-isotropic sky.

• Compute Direct energy : check this option to compute the direct energy.
• Compute Diffused energy : check this option to compute the diffused energy also called vertical sky component.
• Compute Reflected energy : check this option to compute the reflected energy.

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.

• Humidity (w) : steam in the atmosphere is qualified by the thickness of 'condensable' water w, the humidity parameter used by TownScope. We adopted the following classification for climates types :
  • Polar or desert regions (dry air) : w = 0.5 ... 1
  • Temperate climate : w = 2 ... 4
  • Tropical climate (humid air) : w > 5
  As first approximaton, the value of w can be deduced from the pression of water steam at ground level (e in millibar) by : w [cm] = 0.17 * e [mb].

  This table gives the mean, mimimum and maximum values of w according to the latitude, the season type and the altitude.
   

• Turbidity : this parameter represents the atmosphere pollution coefficient. It is related to the local microclimate of the analysed site. The following list gives turbidity values for typical sites.
  • Rural site : 0.05
  • Urban site : 0.10
  • Industrial site : 0.20
• Edhcs/Ethcs : this parameter is the ratio of diffused energy to total energy on horizontal surface in clear sky conditions. By default, TownScope uses the values of the weather data station of the city of UCCLE in Belgium.
   
• Clouding rate : TownScope considers a uniformly covered sky. This parameter represents, in some way, the ratio of real sunshine time to possible sunshine time.
   
• Air temperature, wind speed and clothing : these parameters are used (only) in the comfort evaluation analysis.
   
• Vegetation opacity [%] : in the surface properties window, you can select the Use vegetation mask option for any surface in the scene. During the calculation of direct or diffused energy, the opacity value of vegetation surfaces is set according to the calculated day.

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.

• 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.

Miscellaneous settings

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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