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K. Hammerberg, V. Jain, N. Ghiassi, A. Mahdavi:
"Generalizing roof geometry from minimal user input for building performance simulation";
Talk: CESBP - 2nd Central European Symposium on Building Physics, Wien, Österreich; 2013-09-09 - 2013-09-11; in: "Proceedings of the 2nd Central European Symposium on Building Physics 9-11 September 2013, Vienna, Austria", A. Mahdavi, B. Martens (ed.); ÖKK-Editions, 1 (2013), ISBN: 978-3-85437-321-6; 277 - 284.

One strategy for increasing the use of energy performance simulation tools by primary building designers and novice users is to simplify the input process for complex building geometry. Detailed energy
simulation of a building requires, among other things, specific data on the roof geometry. However, even in the case of simple roof forms, providing such data in a simplified user interface represents a major challenge. If this is circumvented by reducing the input requirements to the crucial information - e.g. angle, ridge height, floor plan, and typology - assumptions about the resulting roof geometry would have to be made. The purpose of this paper is to address these assumptions regarding the generalization of roof geometry in building
performance simulation. The authors have developed an algorithm for auto-generating a set of potential roof forms based on a minimal set of input data. As a test of how well this set of solutions represents realistic and practical roof forms, we opted for the following methodology. We selected a number of existing buildings that represent, in the Austria context, basic typologies and floor plan arrangements. The floor plans and a set of basic parameters describing the roof are then provided to the algorithm, which produces an independent set of roof forms. The buildings are then simulated with both their existing roofs and the algorithmically generated roofs using an energy analysis tool. These results are compared regarding their equivalence in view of energy
performance.

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