Abstract
Since the various people involved in the design process for a building project tend to hold conflicting views, this inevitably leads to a range of disparate models for planning and calculation purposes. In order to interpret the relevant geometrical, topological and semantical data for any given building model, we identify a structural component graph, a graph of room faces, a room graph and a relational object graph as aids and explain algorithms to derive these relations. We start with a building model by transferring its geometrical, topological and semantical data into a volume model, decomposing the latter into a so-called connection model and then extracting all air volume bodies and hulls of the model by means of further decomposition into elementary cyclic connection components. The technique is demonstrated within the scope of building energy simulation by deriving both a dimensionally reduced object model required for setting up a thermal multizone model and a geometrical model for defining single or multiple computational fluid dynamic domains in a building together with incidence matrices correlating these models. The algorithm is basically applicable to any building energy simulation tool.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Architecture, engineering and construction
vertex, edge, face
References
Beausoleil-Morrison I (2000) The adaptive coupling of heat and air flow modelling within dynamic whole building simulation. PhD Thesis, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Bungartz H-J, Griebel M, Zenger Ch (2004) Introduction to computer graphics, 2nd edn. Charles-River Media, Boston
Clarke JA (2001) Energy simulation in building design, 2nd edn. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford
Corney J, Lim T (2001) 3D modeling with ACIS. Saxe-Coburg Publications, Stirling
Drexl T (2003) Entwicklung intelligenter Pfadsuchsysteme für Architekturmodelle am Beispiel eines Kiosksystems. Diploma Thesis, Institut für Informatik, Technische Universität München
Egenhofer M, Franzosa R (1991) Pointset topological spatial relations. Int J Geogr Inf Syst 5(2):161–174
Eurostep Group AB (2000) The IFC STEP toolbox, version 2.X, Beschreibung der IFC Toolbox Classic. http://www.eurostep.com
Hensen JLM (1999) A comparison of coupled and de-coupled solutions for temperature and air flow in a building. ASHRAE Trans 105(2):962–969
International Allicance for Interoperability (IAI). http://www.iai-international.org
Nytsch-Geusen C, Bartsch G (2001) An object-oriented multizone thermal building model based on the simulation environment SMILE. In: Proceedings of the 7th IBPSA conference on building simulation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
O’Rourke J (1998) Computational geometry in C, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, London
Pahl PJ, Damrath R (2001) Mathematical foundations of computational engineering. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York
Petersen M, Meißner U (2000) Energieoptimierte Gebäudeplanung mit verteilter Informationsmodellierung. In: Proceedings of the IKM, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Weimar
QT library online reference (2005) http://www.trolltech.com
Romberg R, Niggl A, van Treeck C, Rank E (2004) Structural analysis based on the product model standard IFC. In: ICCCBE, Xth international conference on computing in civil and building engineering, Weimar
van Treeck C (2004) Gebaeudemodell-basierte simulation von Raumluftstroemungen. PhD Thesis, Munich Technical University
van Treeck C, Rank E (2004) Analysis of building structure and topology based on graph theory. In: ICCCBE, Xth international conference on computing in civil and building engineering, Weimar
van Treeck C, Rank E, Krafczyk M, Tölke J, Nachtwey B (2006) Extension of a hybrid thermal LBE scheme for Large-Eddy simulations of turbulent convective flows. Comput Fluids 35:863–871
van Treeck C, Rank E, Schrag T, Katz C (2005) Abschlussbericht zum Forschungsprojekt SIMFAS. Funding: Bayerische Forschungsstiftung, AZ:468/01, Lehrstuhl fuer Bauinformatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Weiler K (1988) The radial-edge structure: a topological representation for non-manifold geometric boundary modeling. In: Wozny M, McLaughlin H, Encarnacao J (eds) Geometric Modeling for CAD Applications. Elsevier, Amsterdam, North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp 3–36
Wenisch P, van Treeck C, Borrmann A, Rank E, Wenisch O (2006) Computational steering on distributed systems: indoor comfort simulations as a case study of interactive CFD on supercomputers. Int J Parallel Emergent Distrib Syst (in press)
Acknowledgments
The authors’ acknowledgements are due to Richard Romberg and André Borrmann for many valuable discussions. This work is being sponsored by grant No. AZ 468/01 awarded by the Bayerische Forschungsstiftung [1]. The results presented in this paper form part of the work being undertaken within the research project SIMFAS, which aims at coupling thermal building energy simulation with CFD methods [17].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
van Treeck, C., Rank, E. Dimensional reduction of 3D building models using graph theory and its application in building energy simulation. Engineering with Computers 23, 109–122 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-006-0053-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-006-0053-7