centerforthebuiltenvironment / mrt Goto Github PK

Why are SolarCal and Thermal Comfort controls below the controls that control the display? When the user has these various control windows expanded, sometimes the "update view" control gets lost. Would be better I think to have those controls at the bottom.

Given these conditions, there seems to be a jump in the pointwise computed MRT/PMV that isn't reflected in the visualization plane. From dheinzerling.

When using this tool frequently, you really want to be able to quickly dial in the geometry you have setup quickly. There needs to be a way to save all of your current settings and load it in a future session.

aka that thing Paul was harping on about

Add a feature to lock in the range for the temperature color scale. I think this should be the default actually, as it is seems more useful that way. e.g. min and max of 17 and 27°C, with the switch from blue to red happening in the middle at 22°C.

@thoyt

Minor bug that is probably hard to fix.

You can click in the number field the right of an input slider and type in a value, but if you try to select the number by clicking and dragging to highlight the number, it thinks you are trying to use the slider.

I'm guessing you already know about this, but it's possible to specify a panel that extends beyond the wall, causing this:

@thoyt

• have more than one window on a façade
• ability to model window overhangs
• ability to change the azimuth of the building

It would be nice to make a couple improvements on the mouse as target interface:

1. Change the mouse icon to a cross-symbol (like Autocad) or cross-hair symbol when the mouse is over the active area to indicate that it is acting as the pointer
2. Allow user to click and freeze a point on the floor. Click somewhere on the color map--it puts a dot there and the results are fixed to that dot until the user clicks somewhere else. Or perhaps there is a stick figure in the model that the user moves around to get the results :)

Steps:

1. No active panels.
2. Leave all walls and ceiling temps at 21C
3. Set floor to 19C and notice the MRT results scale ranges from 20.3 to 20.7.
4. Click the update view button
5. The graphic is reset to 21C min and max, but the floor temp is still shown as 19C.

Put in a 3-digit tsol value and it will get rounded (usually, though I have also seen it stick). I think this is because the UI has a step of 0.01 for this variable--haven't looked into the connection yet, but I'm sure this is a simple fix.

Sometimes when you click the button it will gray out the screen and say updating. Most of the time it doesn't and you aren't sure if it is working or not.

Documentation needs a link from the site. Also, tooltip hovers over each variable would be helpful.

Add a button to show in IP units.

There are 2 azimuths for the user to enter. One is under the Occupant heading and the other is under the SolarCal heading. The one under the solarcal heading controls the actual position of the sun while the one under the occupant heading controls the occupant azimuth as used in the solarcal calculation (0 = front facing window). This is somewhat confusing. Personally, I would get rid of the occupant heading and move occupant azimuth and posture down to the SolarCal heading and do one of 2 options:

1. leave solar azimuth, but call it solar azimuth, not az
2. or create a new heading called "Sun" and move solar azimuth and altitude to that heading.

Tool no longer renders geometry when I navigate to the test page on Chrome. Amazingly it does still work on Microsoft Edge browser!

Is there a mathematical reason to make the upper limit 100 for surface temperatures or is it just what seemed reasonable and easy to dial-in with a slider? We had a case where we wanted to look at electric resistance radiant panels--which are like 1000°F. I manually entered the value using the console, but I could see others wanting to try something higher than 100 as well.

It would be nice to have a checkbox to link all surface temperatures together. E.g. if you want to start with all surfaces at 30°, you have to go to every surface and change it. With a checkbox, you could change 1 and then have them all linked. This would save a lot of time and prevent some errors I think.