OpenStudio v2.2.2

Bump DView MD5

OpenStudio v2.2.1

Lock geometry tab during simulation

OpenStudio v2.2.0

These release notes describe version 2.2.0 of the OpenStudio software suite developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Buildings and Thermal Systems, Commercial Buildings Research Group, Tools Development Section, and associated collaborators. The notes are organized into the following sections:

• Where to Find OpenStudio Documentation
• Installation Notes
• Overview

Where to Find OpenStudio Documentation

• OpenStudio release documentation, including these release notes, tutorials, and other user documentation, is available at https://www.openstudio.net/.
• C++ API documentation is available at https://openstudio-sdk-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html.
• Measure development documentation is available at http://nrel.github.io/OpenStudio-user-documentation/reference/measure_writing_guide/.

Installation Notes

OpenStudio is supported on Windows 7 – 10, OS X 10.10 – 10.11, and 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04.

OpenStudio 2.2.0 supports EnergyPlus Release 8.7.0, which is bundled with the OpenStudio installer. It is no longer necessary to download and install EnergyPlus separately. Other builds of EnergyPlus are not supported by OpenStudio 2.2.0.

OpenStudio 2.2.0 supports Radiance 5.0.a.12, which is bundled with the OpenStudio installer; users no longer have to install Radiance separately, and OpenStudio will use the included Radiance version regardless of any other versions that may be installed on the system. Other builds of Radiance are not supported by OpenStudio 2.2.0.

Installation Steps

• The OpenStudio SketchUp Plug-in requires SketchUp 2017 (not available for Linux). The OpenStudio SketchUp Plug-in does not support older versions of SketchUp.
  • If the OpenStudio Plug-in does not automatically load in SketchUp, open the Window->Preferences->Extensions window in SketchUp and enable the OpenStudio plug-in if it is listed.
• Download and install OpenStudio.
• Setup a Building Component Library (BCL) account to access online building components and measures. View instructions on how to setup your account and configure the key in OpenStudio.

Overview

DView: the future ResultsViewer replacement
For many years, OpenStudio has included ResultsViewer to visualize timeseries data. The plan for the next OpenStudio release (2.3.0) is to replace ResultsViewer with a visualization tool called DView, which was originally developed for viewing Residential Building and Solar data. DView brings additional capabilities that ResultsViewer does not have, including IP unit conversion, CSV data export, image export, EPW weather file visualization, two synchronized views, stacked timeseries, average profiles, overview statistics, histograms, cumulative density plots, duration curves, and scatter plots.

DView can load EnergyPlus .sql files just like ResultsViewer. Please download DView via the links below, try it out, and send any feedback you may have.

https://github.com/NREL/wex/releases

The Hourly, Daily, and Monthly graphs allow you to turn variables on or off with a single click, and to zoom and pan very easily. DView has the ability to display simultaneous line and stacked areas as demonstrated in the Hourly graph below.

Hourly graph

Daily and Monthly timeseries graphs are automatically created by averaging or summing the hourly data:

Hourly graph

Daily graph

Monthly graph

If the underlying data is sub-hourly, an additional Timeseries graph displays the raw data and the Hourly graph becomes the result of averaging or summing. If the underlying data is multi-hourly (for example, a 3-hour timestep), a Timeseries graph displays the raw data, there is no Hourly graph, and the Monthly graph is the result of averaging or summing the timeseries data

The Heat Map graph displays a whole year of data at once, with the day of the year on the x-axis and time of day on the y-axis, so that each time step corresponds to a small rectangle. That rectangle gets assigned a color based on the value in that time step. Using this format, it is possible to identify both diurnal and seasonal patterns. The example below shows the direct normal solar radiation in Boulder, Colorado from the TMY2 data set. The image shows that the days are longer in the summer than in the winter, the most intense direct radiation values tend to occur in the spring and fall, and summer afternoons tend to be cloudy:

Heat map graph

The Profile graph illustrates average daily profiles for each month of the year (with the ability to also show an annual average daily profile). The graph below demonstrates daily profiles for electric cooling and gas heating in a building:

Profile graph

The Statistics table shows annual or monthly statistical values (e.g., mean, minimum, maximum, sum) for each variable in tabular format:

Statistics table

The PDF/CDF graph shows the Probability Distribution Function (PDF) and Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) for the dataset. These functions are useful to illustrate the distribution and spread of values for a given variable:

PDF/CDF graph

The Duration curve orders the data from highest value to lowest value. By doing so, one can quickly identify, for example, the number of hours for which the variable is above or below a certain threshold:

Duration curve graph

The Scatter plot allows graphing one or more y-axis variable against an x-axis variable. For example, the below graph shows a scatter plot for space heating and space cooling in a building as a function of outdoor drybulb temperature. It can also be useful to compare measured data against simulated data (for which the "line of perfect agreement" can also be displayed).

Scatter plot

OpenStudio Application
OpenStudio Application now provides a newly implemented 3D geometry preview tab.

OpenStudio Model
OpenStudio Model received the following updates:

• Exposed SetpointManager:FollowGroundTemperature - Reference Ground Temperature Object Type to the OpenStudio API
• Added UnitarySystemPerformance:Multispeed object
• Allowed Availability Manager to be attributed to Plant Loop
• Permitted glycols to be used in Plant Loop
• Added GroundHeatExchanger:Vertical gFunctions

Additionally, the following objects have been wrapped:

• GeneratorFuelCell
• GeneratorFuelCellPowerModule
• GeneratorFuelCellPowerModule
• GeneratorFuelCellAirSupply
• GeneratorFuelCellWaterSupply
• GeneratorFuelCellAuxiliaryHeater
• GeneratorFuelCellExhaustGasToWaterHeatExchanger
• GeneratorFuelCellElectricalStorage
• GeneratorFuelCellInverter
• GeneratorFuelCellStackCooler
• GeneratorFuelSupply

The GeneratorFuelCellExhaustGasToWaterHeatExchanger object works in the OpenStudio Application and when added to a plant loop, adds all necessary GeneratorFuelCell and related components to the model and is user-configurable in the OpenStudio Application.

OpenStudio Standards Gem
OpenStudio Standards Gem was updated 0.1.15. This added additional HVAC system types.

OpenStudio Workflow Gems (WFG)
OpenStudio Workflow Gems have been updated to 1.3.0 which offers the following refinements:

• ScriptError subclasses, including LoadError and SyntaxError, as well as NoMemoryError are now handled by the WFG and persisted to the log
• New method runner.haltWorkflow(completedStatus) stops the execution of additional measures and the simulation, and sets the datapoint's completion status appropriately

OpenStudio Server
OpenStudio Server’s robustness has been improved with the following updates:

• Fixed an issue where output variables would overwrite each other if the same measure was run multiple times
• Ensured that all results are available in the csv results list, not just those which were completed successfully
• Changed algorithm retry procedures to ensure no infinite looping of datapoints
• Support datapoints being halted using the runner.haltWorkflow method
• Minor extensibility improvements
• Ensured all deployment environments support configuration of the R queue size
• Variable distribution plots are working again for LHS analyses

Issue Statistics Since Previous Release

• 111 new issues were filed since the 2.1.0 release of OpenStudio (not including opened pull requests).
• 154 issues were closed since the 2.1.0 release of OpenStudio (not including closed pull requests).

OpenStudio v2.1.2

Update build instructions

OpenStudio v2.1.1

Bump PAT sha

OpenStudio v2.1.0

These release notes describe version 2.1.0 of the OpenStudio software suite developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Buildings and Thermal Systems, Commercial Buildings Research Group, Tools Development Section, and associated collaborators. The notes are organized into the following sections:

• Where to Find OpenStudio Documentation
• Installation Notes
• Overview

Where to Find OpenStudio Documentation

• OpenStudio release documentation, including these release notes, tutorials, and other user documentation, is available at https://www.openstudio.net/.
• C++ API documentation is available at https://openstudio-sdk-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html.
• Measure development documentation is available at http://nrel.github.io/OpenStudio-user-documentation/reference/measure_writing_guide/.

Installation Notes

OpenStudio is supported on Windows 7 – 10, OS X 10.10 – 10.11, and 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04.

OpenStudio 2.1.0 supports EnergyPlus Release 8.7.0, which is bundled with the OpenStudio installer. It is no longer necessary to download and install EnergyPlus separately. Other builds of EnergyPlus are not supported by OpenStudio 2.1.0.

OpenStudio 2.1.0 supports Radiance 5.0.a.12, which is bundled with the OpenStudio installer; users no longer have to install Radiance separately, and OpenStudio will use the included Radiance version regardless of any other versions that may be installed on the system. Other builds of Radiance are not supported by OpenStudio 2.1.0.

Installation Steps

• The OpenStudio SketchUp Plug-in requires SketchUp 2017 (not available for Linux). The OpenStudio SketchUp Plug-in does not support older versions of SketchUp.
  • If the OpenStudio Plug-in does not automatically load in SketchUp, open the Window->Preferences->Extensions window in SketchUp and enable the OpenStudio plug-in if it is listed.
• Download and install OpenStudio.
• Setup a Building Component Library (BCL) account to access online building components and measures. View instructions on how to setup your account and configure the key in OpenStudio.

Overview

The OpenStudio 2.x line is an aggressive overhaul of OpenStudio to make the SDK smaller and more accessible for third party software developers. The new package includes two major new components: a command line interface (CLI) and a new version of the Parametric Analysis Tool (PAT). A new component based installer gives users the choice to install only the components that they need. OpenStudio 2.1.0 is the first major release of the OpenStudio 2.x line.

The OpenStudio command line interface (CLI) allows software developers to execute a series of OpenStudio Measures and other simulation steps as described in an OpenStudio Workflow (OSW) file. The OSW defines a set of paths to search for OpenStudio Measures, initial seed model, weather file, and other supporting files. When an OSW is run through the CLI, the initial seed model is loaded and OpenStudio Model Measures are applied to the seed model. After these measures, the OpenStudio Model is translated to EnergyPlus IDF format. Once in EnergyPlus IDF format, OpenStudio EnergyPlus Measures are applied. After these measures, the EnergyPlus simulation is executed. Once the EnergyPlus simulation is complete, OpenStudio Reporting Measures are applied which generate reports. Once the workflow is completed (successfully or unsuccessfully), an output OSW file is written which contains output related to running the workflow. The OpenStudio CLI contains a Ruby interpreter, Ruby standard library, OpenStudio Ruby bindings, and a core set of gems (including the OpenStudio Standards Gem). It does not have any shared library dependencies outside of system runtime libraries. EnergyPlus and Radiance are not embedded within the CLI, they are included as part of the OpenStudio installation. There is an example OSW included in this package in the compact_osw directory under the Examples directory. This example contains everything to run a simple OpenStudio workflow from loading a seed model, applying measures, running EnergyPlus, and running reporting measures. To run this example:

cd path/to/Examples/compact_osw
./path/to/openstudio.exe run -w compact.osw

More information about the OpenStudio CLI is available at: http://nrel.github.io/OpenStudio-user-documentation/reference/command_line_interface/

A new version of the OpenStudio Parametric Analysis Tool (PAT) is part of OpenStudio 2.1.0 packages. This new version of PAT has been rewritten from the ground up as an example of JavaScript application development with OpenStudio. It has been packaged as an Electron desktop application and leverages OpenStudio Server for improved robustness, scalability, and capability. This new version of PAT provides similar functionality (and we hope improved usability) as compared to PAT 1.14.0. However, the new version of PAT is not backwards compatible with PAT 1.14.0 projects. Additionally, this new version of PAT supports “algorithmic” workflows – methods for automatically generating large sets of analysis data points. Choose from Design Of Experiments, Latin Hypercube Sampling, multiple optimization methods, and more to identify the most sensitive parameters in a model, calibrate a model against real consumption data, or optimize a model to balance multiple design objectives. Algorithmic analyses tend to be computationally intensive, so the new PAT supports simulation on Amazon Web Service or other resources provisioned with OpenStudio Server.

The Radiance functionality (Radiance Daylighting Measure) has been updated to work with OpenStudio 2.x, including the OS Application, PAT, and Server. The measure has been relocated to the Building Component Library, but its operation remains the same. The measure is also backward compatible to OpenStudio v1.14.

The Ruby and C# binding footprints have been greatly reduced in the OpenStudio 2.1.0 package. Previously, deploying the Ruby and C# bindings required deployment of many shared library and file dependencies. In OpenStudio 2.1.0, the Ruby bindings are contained in a single openstudio.so (.bundle on Mac) file and the C# bindings in an OpenStudio.dll and two supporting dll files. These are the only files required to distribute the OpenStudio 2.1.0 bindings with a third party application. Note that the openstudio.so Ruby file does not contain any gems or the Ruby standard library; these must be configured using typical Gemfile configuration for your Ruby project. Similarly, the C# bindings do not include a Ruby interpreter or OpenStudio Ruby bindings needed to apply OpenStudio Measures. If a C# project desires to run measures or simulations, it can write an OSW file and make a system call to the CLI.

OpenStudio 2.1.0 is mostly backwards compatible with OpenStudio 1.1.4. One primary difference is that PAT is not backwards compatible with PAT 1.1.4 projects. Also, upgrading a 1.1.4 version OSM to 2.1.0 will not preserve the associated run.db, any measures associated with the OSM will have to be re-added in 2.1.0. The API for OpenStudio Model and other core namespaces was mostly preserved during the OpenStudio 2.1.0 conversion. However, the RunManager, Analysis, Project, and AnalysisDriver namespaces were completely removed. The CLI and OSW format replace the functionality of RunManager. The OpenStudio Analysis (OSA) format replaces the functionality of Analysis, Project, and AnalysisDriver. The Ruleset namespace has been renamed to Measure to better reflect its functionality.

OpenStudio 2.1.0 has been updated to EnergyPlus 8.7, Ruby 2.2.4, and is compatible with SketchUp 2017. ResultsViewer is included in the 2.1.0 release.

Known Issues

This is a list of known issues, if you find an issue not on this list please let us know so we can fix it.

Installer

• Spaces in the install path will cause PAT to fail.
• Firewall rules are not configured at install time, user is prompted to allow http communication between OpenStudioApp and the CLI as well as between PAT and the CLI.

Measures

• Measures written for OpenStudio 1.14.0 and earlier may not work with OpenStudio 2.0.0, measure authors are encouraged to test their measures and update them to ensure compatibility.
• Reporting measures do not have access to offline JavaScript libraries included with the OpenStudio installation. Measure writers can include offline JavaScript libraries in the resources directory of their measure.

OpenStudioApp

• The app may appear to freeze on return from BCL measure dialog on Mac, a workaround is to select File -> Quit and when prompted to save the Model, select cancel to abort the quit operation or press the escape key.
• Using the file menu very quickly after launching OpenStudio may cause a crash if the OpenStudio Results measure has not been downloaded on Mac. Wait until the vertical tabs are re-enabled before using the file menus.

PAT

• “Create One Design Alternative with Each Measure Option” duplicates options that already exist
• Cannot enter user defined string for Measure Choice arguments
• Display name is not shown when browsing measures
• Measures associated with seed model are not imported

Issue Statistics Since Previous Release

• 103 new issues were filed since the 1.14.0 release of OpenStudio (not including opened pull requests).
• 87 issues were closed since the 1.14.0 release of OpenStudio (not including closed pull requests).

OpenStudio v2.0.5

Bump PAT sha

OpenStudio v2.0.4

Bump PAT sha

OpenStudio v2.0.3

[#140358085] ZoneVentilation:NaturalVentilation shows unconventional …

…IP unit for Fan Pressure Rise

OpenStudio v2.0.2

Fixing swig bindings for @nmerket