IMPROVEMENTS - ACCOUNT INFO EVEN WITHOUT ACCESS

You can now see information about your account and login to Sefaira even if your account has expired or been reassigned.

The information provides you with useful help on who to contact about reinstating a license and when it expired.

BUG FIX - WEATHER FILES WITH UNUSUAL CHARACTERS

We discovered some weather files that included unusual characters in the name (apostrophes and hats for example) were not being processed by the daylight engine properly.

This is fixed.

BUG FIXES - ENERGY CHARTS AND AREA REPORTING

We fixed a handful of bugs relating to the Energy Charts including:

• Colours for gas and electricity heating being the wrong way around
• Heating energy not reported correctly for heat pumps in fan coil units

We also fixed some issues with area calculations in the free area outputs when zones are ignored.

IMPROVEMENT - INPUT DOWNLOAD NOW INCLUDES HVAC INPUTS

We've added HVAC information to the results grid download summary. 

This means you can now compare your design option inputs against each other side by side for almost the full range of Sefaira inputs, using a spreadsheet.

Use the download icon at the top left of the results grid to download the file.

IMPROVEMENT - AUTOMATIC CIBSE TRY WEATHER FILE ASSIGNMENT

If you're doing a project in the UK we now automatically assign a CIBSE -TRY weather file to the project, provided one of the 10 closest weather stations in our climate database is a CIBSE TRY file.

This is aimed at helping less experienced users in particular proceed with more confidence because the weather file assigned is closer to what is used for compliance analysis.

IMPROVEMENT - WIDER WEATHER FILE SELECTION

We've changed the window where weather files are changed to now provide the 10 closest locations rather than the 3 closest locations.

This was in response to many users, especially in the UK, who could not find the weather file needed within the top 3.

NEW FEATURE - RADIANCE INPUT FILE DOWNLOAD

You can now download the Radiance and Daysim input files from the last successful daylight simulation in the plugin.

The reason for adding this feature is to help specialist users dig into our inputs in more detail, and reproduce them in a local environment.

BUG FIX - SYSTEMS ONLY PLUGIN

The formatting of the Systems Only plugin was upset by recent changes. This is now fixed.

BUG FIX - INTERNET EXPLORER BUGS

We found a few bugs for internet explorer users at the project creation state and in the Admin Dashboard.

These have been fixed.

IMPROVEMENT - WEATHER FILE SELECTOR AT PROJECT CREATION

At project creation you can now confirm the weather file you'd like to use from a list of 10 which are the 10 closest to the project location.

This was done specifically to help UK customers make sure they get the correct CIBSE weather data but should also help all users identify which weather data is being used.

BUG FIX - NEW PROJECT ERRORS IN INTERNET EXPLORER

We discovered that some users were not able to upload and create new projects when using internet explorer.

We've fixed this bug now.

REMINDER - Sefaira works best in Chrome. Although we do our best, Internet Explorer is a much harder environment to keep stable and errors can occur.

BUG FIX - MASSING ERRORS FAILING PROJECT CREATION

Since launching the update to our model conversion stack in May, users uploading models from the plugin with floor plans that failed using perimeter core were no longer able to create projects when uploading those models. This was creating a lot of confusion.

We've now fixed this and moved the error message into the project after creation. This means you can now at least get into a web app project and make a change to the zoning strategy to get things working.

NEW FEATURE - OFFICIAL CIBSE WEATHER DATA, TRY AND DSY 1,2,3

Sefaira has come to an arrangement with CIBSE to make all CIBSE TRY (Test Reference Year - for energy analysis) and DSY (Design Summer Year - for comfort and sizing) available to Sefaira users.

The goal is to improve confidence in Sefaira results as in the UK many codes and standards stipulate the weather data that must be used.

The weather data is now available in our database - we are working on some changes to the climate data workflow to make it easier to find the specific file you want.

BUG FIX - CUSTOM UNIT CONTROLS

The custom unit controls in settings have been an issue for a while and we've decided to hide them for now until we make some better code improvements.

For now the options are only IP or SI units.

BUG FIX - RESPONSE CURVES - SOLAR PANEL TILT

This wasn't working properly - it's now fixed.

BUG FIX - PLUGIN UPDATE ANALYSIS BUTTON

Previously if you changed location then quickly clicked the "Update Analysis" button in the plugin the results would not reflect the location change.

We've fixed this by preventing use of the Update Analysis button until changes have been processed to prevent accidentally getting the wrong inputs for a simulation.

IMPROVEMENT - PRIVACY LINKS IN COMPLIANCE WITH GDPR REGULATION

We've added 3 links to help you get access to information about how we use your data in accordance with the European GDPR legislation.

These links are in the following places:

- Plugin settings

- Web app settings

- Web app personal info

Privacy information can be found here: https://privacy.sketchup.com/

Please contact support@sefaira.com if you have questions about our implementation of GDPR.

IMPROVEMENT - DAYLIGHTING VISUALIZATION - DATE AND TIME

We have updated the Date and Time analysis to provide users with more control over the simulation. A user can now choose to consider performance under a sunny or cloudy sky, where previously the sky model was dictated by the point-in-time value defined in the weather file.

We believe this change will help users feel more confident in their Date and Time studies: the assumed conditions (sunny or cloudy) are clearly stated and controlled by the user.

For more information on the change, please navigate to the following article: https://support.sefaira.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002283031 

IMPROVEMENT - REVIT 2019 SUPPORT

Our Revit installer and plugin now works with Revit 2019.

NEW FEATURE - DOWNLOAD INPUT SUMMARY PART 1

We've had many feature requests from users wanting an easier way to compare the inputs entered for a set of clones to help with checking models and comparing options in detail.

There is now a downloadable spreadsheet which includes UI inputs for the following:

• Envelope tab properties
• Space Use tab properties
• Shading tab properties
• Assignment of space uses to zones

Watch this space for added items on this list.

The file can be downloaded from the results grid download link. It's great for sharing with colleagues of team members who want to understand the model inputs.

IMPROVEMENT - PLUGIN TIME-OUT ERROR MESSAGE

We've made this message clearer and provided more useful links to help those with models that time out.

BUG FIX - AREA WEIGHTINGS FOR LOADS

We fixed an issue where areas used to determining area-weighted peak loads were incorrect if some zones had been ignored.

IMPROVEMENT - SKETCHUP NORMALS

We've changed the onboarding notifications for SketchUp plugin users and changed the way that entities are shown so there's no longer a difference between either side of a face (surface normals).

This reflects a recent change added which means we automatically determine the external and internal surfaces of materials (users don't need to do this anymore). Additionally, this article explains how we assign a wall to a cardinal direction for the window to wall ratio override in the web application. 

IMPROVEMENT - ADDITIONAL OUTPUTS IN E+ ENERGY REPORT

We've added load summaries to that annual E+ energy report (downloadable from the Energy Tab download menu). These are to help with:

- testing ASHRAE 140 loads

- checking annual space load heating and cooling values separate to HVAC components.

BUG FIXES - VARIOUS

We released a bunch of bug fixes today, including

- An issue where the E+ version was not always remembered when changed

- Zone strategy occasionally reverting back to basic P/C if Detailed P/C is used

- Bugginess in plugin dial values switching back and forth to older results after multiple hovers over the outputs

- Issues with some Space Use Tab response curves

IMPROVEMENT - AUTO IGNORE SMALL ZONES

We're now automatically ignoring zones less than 4m2 (43sqft). This is done automatically because we've discovered EnergyPlus has a strong tendency to throw errors with zones below this area value and we found it was not easy for users to understand why or work out how to troubleshoot.

Longer term we're looking to remove this from the model automatically but for now they're ignored in the interface.

IMPROVEMENT - EMPTY MODEL HELP IN PLUGIN

When you open a new model and hit Update Analysis without a minimum amount of geometry, you get a help message.

We've made improvements to this message - linking it to new help videos on Sefaira's Knowledgebase. We're also directing SEP (Sefaira Education Program) Users to seek help at our Forum rather than through the support ticket system (which doesn't address student tickets).

BUG FIX - ROOF TAGGING IN SKETCHUP

We released a fix for a very annoying bug that caused roof tags to "bounce" around the model in SketchUp on some models (ie you have a roof, then tag it as floor then the roof tag randomly gets moved to another floor)

UPGRADE - MODEL CONVERSION SERVICE

We released the first phase of a major upgrade to our SketchUp and Revit model conversion services today. Although most components are not connected yet, there are some changes:

• you don't need to correct the surface normals (for planes) in the plugin anymore - this is now done automatically. 
• the model thumbnail and plan view images now come from our newly interpreted models. Because these are loaded separately you'll see different spinners for now (see below) - the "Converting Geometry" spinner communicates that the first-time conversion of geometry is taking place.
• the first time a model loads, we're doing a few more steps which will make the process of uploading models slightly longer. This should only increase time marginally and only when the model is first uploaded.

This interim phase gives us the chance to see how well projects are converting with the new geometry service while we fully connect it to EnergyPlus.

Why are we upgrading model conversion services?

• To make it easier to identify errors in model conversion so we can provide better error reporting and support for customers with issues
• To make it easier to develop new model conversion processes and features
• To make our systems more reliable, faster and scalable

SERVICE CHANGE - OLD ARCHITECTURE WEB APPLICATION

We removed Sefaira's Old Architecture Web Application from service today. This was announced 6 months ago.

For information on why we made this change, see this article.

UPGRADE - DAYLIGHT ANALYSIS SERVICE

We released a major upgrade to the back-end services of our Daylight Analysis service today. The release represents the culmination of many months of work that has re-written the software architecture of the process.

Although initially users will not notice any difference, the new software architecture will make it easier for us to:

- Troubleshoot and fix any issues with the daylight service

- Investigate and communicate results to users with questions

- Build additional daylight features in the future

- Speed up the services that provide daylight analysis

A similar process is also underway relating to our model conversion processes which should be released soon.

BIG FIX - CONTACT SUPPORT

Users who had not logged into our Zendesk Knowledgebase who clicked "Contact Support" at the top of the web app page would get kicked out of their request after filling in the form.

We've now inserted a prompt to login to the Knowledgebase before you get to the form so that it doesn't happen anymore.

BUG FIX - UPLOAD ADD COMPARISON

If you used the Upload function from the plugin and the selected "Add as a Comparison", then choose the option to have material properties from the plugin, there was a bug where we were applying default materials instead.

This has been fixed.

IMPROVEMENT - OVERRIDE GLAZING

We've looked at the way interactions work in the Override Glazing tab for the web application. Here's what we improved:

1) If you have facades with different glazing ratios, the number shown initially is the average for the building.
2) If you override with different facade ratios, then when the card flips it will show the red “edit for all” box so it’s clearer that they would be changing values for all facades.

Hopefully this reduces confusion from the feature.

IMPROVEMENT - PASSWORD CHANGE AND ACCOUNT CREATION PAGES

We've just taken steps to make these pages look more professional, so new users have a better experience when starting off in the product.

The image is a house from one of our staff members, which was designed using SketchUp and Sefaira.

BUG FIX - COPY PROJECT

We discovered that some calls to Google's Cumulonimbus service were failing and this was causing red-box errors, especially when copying projects.

We've fixed it so we make sure we keep calling the Google service until we get success. This should avoid red-box errors that had happened occasionally when copying projects.

BUG FIX - ENERGY PLUS SIZING REPORT DOWNLOAD

The sizing report from EnergyPlus was not downloading properly (note this is downloaded from the Plant Sizing and Zone Sizing tabs).

It's now fixed.

IMPROVEMENT - PROJECT CREATION

We added more info including a supporting video and a building type choice to project creation to help people, especially new users, understand how we make starting assumptions. There are also a couple of other changes:
- We added a building choice option which mimics what changing the building choice in the plugin does
- The video explains why the results in the web app are sometimes different to the plugin and alerts users to things they do that cause this.
- Because of changes some people make in the plugin, when users get to the web app it's possible results are quite different on the first web app run. We wanted to take steps to reduce this or at least explain what has happened when it does.

IMPROVEMENT - AIA 2030 DDX REPORTING

We've made a few more improvements to this feature by automatically populating more location data when you click upload. 

IMPROVEMENT - SPACE USE AND SHARE PROJECT

If you are shared on a project the interaction with space use templates is now much clearer.

• The project owner's firm's space use templates are visible.
• Anyone shared on the project only sees the project owner's firm templates for space use
• If someone shared on the project makes new templates, they are added to the project owner's firm's templates. 

This should help clear up confusion that existed previously on shared projects.

BUG FIX - EPW WEATHER FILE UPLOAD

User-defined weather files were not being uploaded properly to the project.

This has been fixed today.

BUG FIX - PROJECT SHARING WITH EMAIL ADDRESS

Users were reporting red-box errors when trying to use the project sharing feature with an email address.

The volume of requests we had over the break created a queue of requests that our user management service could not deal with.

We've fixed how this deals with requests now and there should be any issues.

IMPROVEMENT - NAVIGATION HEADER

Many customers report that they don't know how to submit support requests or find the knowledgebase.

We've upgraded our header to help people find the support they need more easily.  

BUG FIX - PROJECTS IN CHILE NOW WORK

We had an error with our tariff database which meant that projects created in Chile wouldn't work.

This was fixed today. 

NEW FEATURE - AIA 2030 COMMITMENT REPORTING TO AIA DDX 

The AIA 2030 Commitment is a voluntary program run by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Firms voluntarily commit to reporting the EUI (Energy Usage Intensity) of their projects to the AIA while in design and strive to achieve energy savings when compared with operational building stock.

The AIA has an online portal called the AIA 2030 DDX (direct data exchange) where firms report project EUIs.

You can now report to the AIA DDx directly from Sefaira. When uploading we will send:

• EUI
• Project details like area, location, building type
• Other properties like lighting power density, glazing ratio and whether the project has renewables.

You will need user and firm keys from the AIA to upload information.

IMPROVEMENT - SHARE PROJECT

We've made some big improvements to our share project feature.

• When you share a project with someone who is eligible for a trial (anyone who has not used in the past 12 months), they will automatically get a 30-day trial assigned to them so you can start collaborating immediately.
• The person you share a project with now gets an email explaining that you have shared the project with them.
• We've tidied up the interface and included a video to explain how it works.
• You can invite more than one person at once now too.

Now you have no excuse to get more involved in helping you deliver great designs!

This article has more information on sharing and eligibility.

BUG FIX - AREA CALCULATION FOR GROUPS

Sometimes the area shown for groups was changing or now showing the correct total, particularly for models with ignored zones.

This was happening because of the order of commands made by the front end browser to the server. Area calculations after ignored zones were accounted for was one of the last calculations. For detailed projects this meant the area values could take a long time to come back.

We've now fixed this issue.

BUG FIXES - VARIOUS

• The support link provided in the plugin now works.
• When you download the energy spreadsheets from the Energy Output tab, the lighting and equipment values are the right way around
• Results from IP unit response curves for PV output is now correct

CORRECTION - EUI CALCULATION NOW INCLUDES RENEWABLES

Sefaira's EUI (Energy Usage Intensity) calculation previously did not include renewable energy. This was because we had proponents for including and not including EUI but we felt that "Usage Intensity" suggested a metric absent of renewables.

After consulting with the AIA (American Institute of Architects), we've decided to include renewable energy in the EUI number reported, as this is the process used for the AIA 2030 Commitment.

BUG FIX - VISIBILITY OF PROJECT CONTROLS ON OLD PROJECTS

Some old projects were found to have the project controls missing, making them impossible to make changes on. 

This was discovered to be caused by duplicate fields added to our database.

We've fixed this now.

IMPROVEMENTS - UPLOADING MODELS TO WEB APP

We've made a couple of minor additional workflow improvements to the process of uploading models form the plugin to web app.

This includes some activity spinners and less confusing information.

IMPROVEMENT - PLUGIN ENERGY RUN SPEED

We've made some important code improvements to the way we generate and run EnergyPlus simulations for the plugin which have resulted in very substantial speed improvements.

Our testing on a range of models showed a 30-40% improvement on run speed when doing energy analysis in the plugin.

BUG FIX - FEEDBACK LINK IN PLUGIN

The link under settings to a survey that enables you to provide feedback from the SketchUp plugin has been fixed.

IMPROVEMENT - UPLOADING MODELS TO WEB APP

We have made some important improvements to the workflow when uploading models from the plugins to the web app.

There are now effectively 4 different options available to users when uploading models to Sefaira:

1) Create a new project with the 3D massing. In this case we will default to the properties used in the plugin but the space use can still be edited.

2A) Upload the 3D geometry as a new iteration to an existing project, populated with the properties from the plugin. (note: this is how uploading to an existing project used to work)

2B) Upload the 3D geometry as a new iteration to an existing project, populated with copied properties from an existing iteration in that project (ie if you've set up an option in a project and now want to upload an new massing and keep inputs the same, it's much easier)

(note 2A and 2B are sub-options in the "add as a comparison" path below).

3) Upload the 3D geometry to a project to replace some or all of the massings in that project. All massings can be replaced in one go if you like, making it much faster to update a whole project with a new 3D form.

BUG FIX - DEWPOINT AND WATERSIDE TAB SLIDERS

An error was discovered a few weeks ago that meant that dewpoint control and some waterside tab sliders were not sending data to E+.

We've fixed this today.

BUG FIX - USING GROUPS WITH INTERNET EXPLORER

We did a major code rewrite of the results grid and it ended up breaking the group function for IE users.

We've now fixed that.

IMPROVEMENT - IMPROVED IDF DOWNLOAD ERROR MESSAGE

We only keep idf files for 90 days. After that you need to rerun a simulation to be able to download it.

However we discovered we were providing the wrong message to people when they tried to download an old idf file. It would tell a user that they needed to change simulation mode. 

The message has been fixed and now confirms you need to re-run the simulation. 

NEW FEATURE - SIGN OUT OF THE PLUGIN

It is now possible to sign out of the plugin. The option can be found under the settings menu:

IMPROVEMENT - COPY PROJECT

Previously, when duplicating a project in the web application, you would need to refresh the page before the new project copy was visible. Now, the new project copy will appear after the duplication procedure completes.  

BUG FIX - 2030 PALETTE DESIGN GUIDANCE

The Guidance tab in the Sefaira Real-Time Analysis Plugin surfaces links to relevant design "swatches" created by the Architecture 2030 team.

Recently, Architecture 2030 updated the location of these swatches.  We have updated our links, so you will be directed to the intended 2030 Palette swatch. 

IMPROVEMENT - BETTER VISIBILITY OF CLONE FUNCTION

Comparing design options is one of the ways to get great value from Sefaira. We noticed during user testing that the clone function was not obvious.

There is now an extra call to action for creating new options and comparing designs for new users.

NOTIFICATION - NO MORE NEW PROJECT CREATION FOR OLD ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS

Per our email communication, as of today there is no more new project creation available for Sefaira's Old Web Application.

At new project creation you are now directed straight to our new web application.

Old projects will still be accessible and will still run analysis until April 15, 2018, when they will be switched off and no longer visible.

BUG FIX - OLD WEB APPLICATION RESPONSE CURVES

Response curves weren't working properly in the old web app. 

We've fixed it, but with a catch. The spinner takes quite a while to appear (up to 10s or so). So hold tight. Results should come back OK now.

IMPROVEMENT - CLICK ZONE TO SELECT FOR SPACE USE CHANGE

In the Zoning tab you can now click directly onto a zone to change its space use.

You can also hold down CTRL (PC) or ALT (Mac) to select more than 1 zone.

BUG FIX - SWITCHING BETWEEN ITERATIONS

As you switch between iterations you should now see that the input and output tabs remain static.

IMPROVEMENT - SMOOTHER LOADING WITH WEB APP CHANGES

Today we removed more duplicate calls that we found were slowing down the application for projects with lots of iterations.

This should result in more responsive switching between parts of the application.

IMPROVEMENT - FASTER PLUGIN AND MORE MODELS ACCEPTED DUE TO SERVER SIDE PLANE COUNT

This improvement is substantial and should especially help Revit users. 

The plugin was previously counting the number of planes a model had on the client side (ie in the plugin widget on your computer).

It now does this calculation in the cloud on our servers. This makes it a lot faster and allows us to base it on a more accurate picture of how we're going to use the model (ie we've done more processing first).

This should mean that a lot more models get through the model interpretation pipeline and it should mean the plugin runs faster.

BUG FIX - SPACE USE VENTILATION SLIDERS

There were issues identified with the sliders not triggering runs.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - NAMING OF ITERATIONS

When naming iterations we were accidentally kicking people out of the rename box when runs came back. We've fixed this by preventing you from renaming if this is likely to happen.

We also made a few other tweaks to our improvements to the results grid table.

BUG FIX - HOLE REMOVER 

We discovered an issue with our hole remover based on a support request. The hole remover makes sure holes in floor plates are supported.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - LOADING SPEED AND STABILITY OF RESULTS GRID

We've done a substantial re-write of how the results grid works to make interactions in the web application faster.

It should now be much clearer when you move iterations around and try making groups, what is happening.

When you switch between iterations, it no longer hides and then refreshes the whole results grid.

BUG FIX - WYOMING AND PACIFIC WEATHER STATIONS

We had 2 bugs with climate data we fixed today:

- Wyoming weather data was crashing because of a typo in our state-level tariff definitions! That was fixed.

- Tonga and some other pacific island projects were crashing because of date issues. That was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - VRF IMPLEMENTATION

The VRF controls in EnergyPlus look to establish whether the system is in "Heating mode" or "Cooling Mode". This is a link to the E+ manual on VRF System controls.

We had previously been using a master zone condition to determine the correct mode, but this was set up before we had one zone per room and we've identified some projects where it's possible for this control method to pick a bad zone and then incorrectly set the operating mode for the VRF system in the mode.

The result was that occasionally, a model would show VRF using a lot less energy than it should.

We fixed this today by changing mode determination from "master zone" to "load priority". This means it now determines the mode by comparing the heating and cooling loads for all zones in the building each time step and using that to determine the correct operating mode.

IMPROVEMENT - SMOOTHER LOADING WITH INPUT CHANGES

We released a code change that tidied up a lot of unneeded calls between the front end and our servers.

The result should be faster loading projects and more responsiveness in the application.

We did a lot of tests to check to make sure nothing went missing, but if you get a lot of red-box errors or other strange errors please let us know at support@sefaira.com.

BUG FIX - SOLAR PV ORIENTATION FOR RESPONSE CURVES

Response curves run for the PV panel orientation weren't working properly.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - IGNORE ZONE WHEN CREATING PROJECT

We found a bug that was causing projects to crash permanently if you ignored zones before the first run was complete.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - CLEARER OUT-OF-RANGE MESSAGING

Users can manually enter an input value rather than using sliders and that value can be outside the slider range.

Previously we highlighted the box red if the value entered was out of range. This gave a lot of users the impression it wouldn't be used.

We've changed the highlighting to yellow and added an error message so it's clear what it does.

BUG FIX - IDF DOWNLOAD

Some customers reported issues downloading idf files. This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - HOURLY COMFORT AND TEMPERATURE DATA INCLUDES ALL HOURS

Hourly comfort data (dry bulb, operative and PMV) now includes all hours of the year (not just operating hours).

NEW FEATURE - DOWNLOAD HOURLY TEMPERATURE AND PMV VALUES TO EXCEL

Download an excel spreadsheet containing hourly values for Operative Temperature or PMV by zone so that you can validate results or do other code checks with Sefaira data.

NEW FEATURE - THERMAL COMFORT REPORTS FOR PMV / ASHRAE 55 AND OPERATIVE TEMPERATURE

Download an excel report summarising how the whole building performs against your comfort criteria. Useful for quickly testing compliance against comfort standards and for identifying which zones need the most work improving comfort.

SUPPORT FOR REVIT 2018

Sefaira is now compatible with Revit 2018.

As a Sefaira for Revit user, you will likely have seen a notification directing you to update your plugin. Doing so will enable you to use Sefaira in Revit 2018. New and updated versions of the plugin can be found here: http://learn.sefaira.com/architecture/plugin-installation/#revit 

IMPROVEMENT - UPDATED RADIANCE PARAMETERS FOR DAYLIGHTING VISUALIZATION

Customers have told us that they want more confidence in the specific results Sefaira delivers through Daylighting Visualization, so we recently carried out an extensive study into Radiance rendering parameters. Our goal was to minimise the variance between Sefaira results and those from industry standard rendering parameters without sacrificing run speed.

As a result of this study, we have updated the underlying rendering parameters used for analysis. This is expected to affect daylight results on all projects. Simulation times will also be longer.

For most projects we studied, industry standard rendering parameters produced less daylight than Sefaira does today. This means that you should expect measured daylight levels to be lower than prior to this change. We do not expect the relative differences between design studies to change (e.g. when you are comparing one form or one fenestration strategy against another).

Apart from improved accuracy we expect other benefits to accrue from the new parameters. Instances of daylight leakages, sometimes observed with Revit models in particular, should be substantially reduced.

IMPROVEMENT - FASTER DAYLIGHT RUNS

We have tweaked our parallelisation process and cloud machines to get a bit more speed out of the daylight analysis.

Runs should return about 30-40% faster after today's upgrade and this should also reduce the number of models that fail from time-outs.

IMPROVEMENT - RESULTS GRID RESPONSIVENESS

We've changed the way that some of the web application data is stored so that the results grid loads faster.
We also went through and cleaned out some old code to help things run faster as well.

This is part of ongoing work to improve the responsiveness of the web application.

BUG FIX - WATERSIDE TAB SLIDERS NOT TRIGGERING RUNS

The waterside tab inputs were not kicking off runs when changed.

This was fixed today.

NEW FEATURE - CONTROL YOUR DAYLIGHTING ANALYSIS SENSOR GRID RESOLUTION

Grid resolution refers to the spacing between sensors which are used by Sefaira Daylighting Visualization to assess illuminance at the workplane.

The spacing between sensors affects the number of sensors in your scene, which in turn impacts the precision and duration of your analysis: Tighter sensor spacing means more sensors, greater precision, and longer run times.

Control the sensor spacing in your model by selecting a Low or High grid resolution for your daylighting analysis.

• Low resolution bases the spacing of sensors on the total floor area of your model.
• High resolution bases the spacing of sensors on the largest single floor area within your model.

Learn more about grid resolution settings and sensor spacing here.

7/20/2017

NEW FEATURE - MONTHLY ENERGY RESULTS EXCEL DOWNLOAD

The results from the monthly energy charts can now be downloaded to an excel file.

The file will follow the energy use / energy mix, IP/SI unit and area-weighted settings, so make sure these are set to the data you want.

BUG FIX - FREE AREA EXCEL REPORT

The link for this download stopped working for some reason.

We fixed it today.

BUG FIX - FLIPPED VIEW OF FLOOR PLAN

The view of the floor plans in all the zoning diagrams had been accidentally flipped by removal of a piece of code on July 4.

This was fixed this morning.

IMPROVEMENT - GRADIENT VIEW OF COMFORT RESULTS

We had feedback that it was hard for users to see when lots of zones were failing a comfort metric, which one to address first without having to download the report and study the results.

To address this we've added a "Gradient" control for the coloring of the zones, so it's easier to see how badly they pass or fail the criteria.

IMPROVEMENT - SERVER QUEUING AND STABILITY

We finally discovered a system error that was causing cloud machines to drop off without restarting.

This had caused occasional periods with longer queue times for users (essentially meaning longer run times).

It's fixed and shouldn't happen anymore.

IMPROVEMENT - EDITABLE VALUES FOR WATER TEMPERATURES (SYSTEMS ONLY)

Many users asked us to change the water temperature sliders for chilled water, heating hot water and condenser water. 

Rather than change the slider range, we've added editable boxes so you can add whatever value you want for these inputs.

If the value is outside the range, the box will be coloured red but it will still be used for the calculations.

IMPROVEMENT - NEW CAV SUPPLY AIR RESET DEFAULT (SYSTEMS ONLY)

New CAV systems now use the "Minimize Heating Energy" temperature reset for the central AHU.

The energy use for this system was previously very high because it was at constant supply temperature with lots of reheat.

Existing systems have not been changed - to update adjust the controller in the airside tab.

NEW KNOWLEDGEBASE ARTICLES - ASHRAE 55 AND PMV IN SEFAIRA

We have updated existing content and written new content for the comfort section of the Knowledgebase.

• Introduction to Thermal Comfort now includes Operative Temperature and PMV
• ASHRAE 55 Interpretation in Sefaira
• Why it's so hard to pass ASHARE 55 

IMPROVEMENT - SITE CONTEXT NOW SHOWN ON ALL PLAN VIEWS

We've added a view that provides you with the context of all buildings on the site for all plan views in the web application.

The view can be toggled on and off but the default view is on.

This is intended to help by:

• Projecting all floors in the same scale, making it easier to understand how each level is presented
• Helping to identify where things like small shading planes have accidentally been tagged as floor
• Helping to identify how each level in the building relates to the site as a whole.

IMPROVEMENT - DIRECT SUN

We’ve improved the Direct Sunlight simulation and visualization.

The two things we changed:

- we changed the annual weather data used for simulations to ensure all timesteps included enough direct global radiation to register direct sun for all climates (in some weather files results were affected in timesteps where no direct radiation was recorded)

- we changed the way we calculate what constitutes an hour of direct sun. Before we counted any "calendar hour" with at least 15 minutes of direct sun as being an hour of direct sun. Now we add up the number of 15-minute intervals registering direct sun, divide by 4 and then round down to work out the total number of hours of direct sun.

NEW KNOWLEDGE BASE ARTICLE - DIRECT SUNLIGHT

This link is a new article explaining how we do direct sun calculations.

IMPROVEMENT - SUPPLY AIR TEMPERATURE RESET

We've added a range of controls for VAV, UFAD and Displacement systems that provide control over how the air-handling unit controls the supply air temperature.

The default is still constant supply air temperature.

This Knowledgebase article explains how it was implemented.

IMPROVEMENT - FIXED GLAZING REMINDER FOR GLAZING OVERRIDE

If your model has fixed glazing on one or more facades, then we have added a reminder in the glazing override controls.

The reminder lets you know that the glazing override is all considered operable. In other words - this is a reminder that we don't work out the % of fixed glazing from the 3D model and apply it to the override. 

(you can still set a fixed glazing percentage in the natural ventilation controls).

BUG FIX - HEAT PUMPS WITH ELECTRIC COIL RED BOX ERROR

HVAC systems set up with air source heat pumps for one heating coil and direct electric heating for the other heating coil were throwing EnergyPlus errors.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - COMFORT REPORT RESULTS SHOWING PROPERLY

The comfort report which is a .xlxs file you can download from the comfort results was showing N/A for the results.

We fixed this today. Thanks for your patience.

NEW FEATURE - ASHRAE 55 and PMV BENCHMARKS FOR THERMAL COMFORT

There is now a third metric in the application for measuring thermal comfort - PMV (Predicted Mean Vote). 

PMV is the primary metric used by ASHRAE 55 for thermal comfort measurement in air-conditioned buildings. It is also used by GreenStar in Australia.

The default settings are ±0.5 which are read as the requirements of ASHRAE 55. This is very hard to achieve in practice and will probably require:

• Substantial solar control for glazing
• Substantial insulation of all elements
• Substantial warm-up times or set-back temperatures very close to set points

We'll provide further documentation to assist in the near future.

IMPROVEMENT - MORE LOGICAL PLACEMENT OF DOWNLOAD LINKS

We've moved the download links from the results grid to the specific output tabs they belong in. These are mostly links for Systems customers.

We've also made it clearer that the "Clone" and "Delete" features are buttons by making them blue and by making them clearer in the results grid.

new results grid (below)

where to get E+ energy report (below)

where to get E+ sizing report (below)

where to get E+ sizing report and zone sizing summary (below)

NEW FEATURE - EXPORT USER GRID 

Administrators  can now export the full list of users for their account. Using this feature along with the "keep users in sync" feature, will make it easier for larger firms and universities to keep their list of users current. 

IMPROVEMENT & BUG FIX - HVAC DAY OPERATION

We've added new controls in space use that support HVAC operation on 5, 6 or 7 days per week.

We've also used this feature to fix a bug in the way our controls worked.

Before: Ventilation was on 5 days per week but setpoints were used every-day during operating hours to condition the building. This meant extra heating and cooling energy weekends.

Now: Ventilation, Heating and Cooling are aligned. All are on during "On" hours and "On" days. During "off" hours and days heating and cooling only condition to setback temperatures.

More information in this article. 

NEW KNOWLEDGE BASE ARTICLE

We've added this article that makes it clearer how HVAC operates during "on" or "off" hours.

https://sefaira.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000308472

NEW FEATURE - CONTRACT ADMINS CAN VIEW USER PROJECTS

A contract admin primary can now not only see how many projects an individual user has, but can also directly link into the users project page to view them. Additionally, the contract admin primary can extend this capability to any other contract admin they choose. 

BUG FIX - NATURAL VENTILATION CONTROLS IN SAFARI

The "HVAC Integration" menu was not correctly showing in Safari. We fixed this today.

NEW SECTION - ZONING 

We published a new section capturing all articles dealing with zoning. 

Zoning 

BUG FIX - ENERGY BREAKDOWN EXCEL REPORT DOWNLOADS

The excel file downloads for the energy tab were not appearing properly for some users. We fixed this today.

IMPROVEMENT - GROUND LOOP PUMPING ENERGY

We'd had a lot of comments that the ground loop pumping energy was too high.

The ground loop pumps were on constant operation. We changed the setting in EnergyPlus to intermittent operation.

This means they still run at constant flow but are off if not needed (they were off during "off" hours but now they're also "off" during times when it's not needed).

BUG FIX - STATE ISSUES WITH IGNORE ZONE

Sometimes the application was not realising that results were out of date if zones were tagged as ignored. This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - MODEL INTERPRETATION

A bug has been fixed  which would sometimes cause vertices to be dropped from our model interpretation. 

NEW ARTICLE - AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMPS EXPLAINED

We published an article explaining how our air source heat pump feature works.

Air to Water Heat Pumps Explained

NEW FEATURE - DETAILED PERIMETER CORE ZONING

Perimeter core zoning is the default zoning strategy in the web application. It's a great way to zone a building with minimal effort to improve the accuracy of results.

One drawback with the perimeter core zoning algorithm we were using is that all north facing zones get lumped into a single thermal zone. For options with lots of buildings in the massing or buildings that have self-shading characteristics, this is not always realistic.

As a result we've added a detailed mode for perimeter / core zoning. This makes the same zone boundaries as today's perimeter core zoning algorithm, but gives each non-contiguous space it's own zone.

The result will be a more zones and more associated accuracy in this mode.

The existing process will still be the default and will now be called "Basic Perimeter / Core"

NEW FEATURE - AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMPS (SYSTEMS CUSTOMERS ONLY)

There is a new heating hot water loop option called "Heat Pumps". This represents an air-source heat pump which is a device that extracts heat from the air to generate heating hot water.

This was a very popular feature request but was not natively available in EnergyPlus. We therefore integrated the performance curves into the idf file separately.

Watch this space for more details which will be documented. The solution is dynamic, considering external air temperatures and supply water temperatures in determining the effective hourly COP of the device.

  NEW FEATURE - SEP ADMINISTRATORS CAN DISABLE OR ENABLE THE OLD ARCH WEB APP

The primary account administrator for a SEP account, can now enable or disable students to have or not have access to the old architectural web application. 

NEW FEATURE - OPERATIVE TEMPERATURE

The comfort output tab now does two calculations when you turn comfort on: Operative Temperature (also known as Resultant Temperature) as well as Dry Bulb Temperature.

One key difference: you need to set the range you're trying to achieve for all zones. This is different to Dry Bulb Temperature which uses the setpoint range in each zone to work out the threshold that you're trying to hit.

Many would argue that operative temperature is a better measure of comfort but note that because operative temperature includes radiant temperature, heavily glazed perimeter zones can be expected to have trouble passing even if a building is conditioned. This is because the radiant temperature (which makes up half of the operative temperature is high). 

We'll be publishing more guidance on operative temperature soon.

NEW ARTICLE - WHAT WARM-UP AND COOL-DOWN MEANS

This is a new knowledgebase article explaining what warm-up and cool-down loads mean.

https://sefaira.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000108592

IMPROVEMENT - EDITABLE VALUES FOR RESPONSE CURVES

We have had lots of requests to change slider ranges for response curves.

In the end, we decided to make the two ends of the response curve range manually adjustable with the slider showing "Typical" values.

If the value is outside the "typical range" the box will go red but it will still use those values.

BUG FIX - RUN KICK-OFF FOR NEW RUNS

We recently introduced an improvement that starts the first run automatically for new projects.

We ironed out a few kinks that were identified with this today.

IMPROVEMENT - PLACEMENT OF ZONE NAMES

We adjusted how we determine where to put the zone names in an effort to make it easier to identify which one is which.

IMPROVEMENT - COLOURING OF IGNORED ZONES

Ignored zones are now coloured grey to make it clearer which ones have been ignored.

 IMPROVEMENT - BULK INVITE PAGE

Minor improvements to the user interface were made to the bulk invite page of mange.sefaira.com. 

BUG FIX - COMFORT THRESHOLD SETTING NOT "STICKING"

The threshold adjustment for thermal comfort was not being remembered properly in some browsers.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - PV INPUT TWEAKS

The maximum area for the PV slider was previously set to an extremely large number. It is now limited to 8,000 m2 (~88,000ft2) (although you can make it larger by manually entering the area).

The default orientation for new projects is now 180°. This means that if you don't change it, it will be typical for northern hemisphere sites (a lot of people were not changing it then ending up with panels angled at 30° to the north which reduced performance substantially).

IMPROVEMENT - RUN BUTTON "STICKING"

When in "Run button mode" the run button would reset if all the changes made to the interface had not "processed" by the time the run button was clicked.

This was causing the run button to "switch off" and cancel the run.

If you click the run button and there are still changes being processed they will not disrupt the simulation.

  BUG FIX - INTERNET EXPLORER DOES NOT SHOW DELETE OR EDIT BUTTON

Fixed a bug when using internet explorer to view manage.sefaira.sketchup.com, the deleted and edit icons were missing. 

IMPROVEMENT - TOTAL NUMBER OF PROJECTS FOR ACCOUNT

A ccount administrators can now see the total number of projects for their entire account in the account summary in the account management  dashboard.

NEW FEATURE - "ENERGY MIX" VIEWS FOR COST AND CO2 IN ENERGY BREAKDOWN GRAPHS

You can now swap between an Energy Use and Energy Mix breakdown of the building's energy use in the Energy Breakdown graphics.

This is especially helpful to create views for projects aiming to achieve net zero energy cost or net zero CO2 emissions because the renewable portion can be separated out of the energy use.

BUG FIX - RADIANT FLOOR WITH UNCONDITIONED ZONES

Red box errors were common for models containing at least one zone tagged as "Unconditioned" while using a Radiant Floor HVAC system

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - GENERATE VIEWS ERRORS

Generate Views is a feature in the Revit plugin that creates a special view for Sefaira excluding all the unnecessary geometry so it's easier to upload the model.

Some Revit models were throwing errors when this button was clicked.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - AUTOMATIC FIRST RUN FOR NEW PROJECTS

We had noticed that some users were confused when creating a new project and wanted to communicate how the product worked.

For new projects, the first run happens automatically on creation even if you are in run button mode.

BUG FIX - RENEWABLE ENERGY RESPONSE CURVES

The response curves for solar PV were not parsing properly and reporting a flat line.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - SIGNING OUT OF THE APPLICATION

Previously when signing out, users would be sent to the account management page in Sefaira and had to log out again from there.

Logging out from sefaira.sketchup.com now logs you out of the whole product.

BUG FIXES - ENERGYPLUS V8.6 - FAN COIL ENERGY AND RADIANT FLOORS

There were two bugs with version 8.6:

- Fan energy from fan coil units was being parsed incorrectly due to a change in the E+ outputs - this was causing users to see massive fan energy for most fan coil unit objects.

- Radiant Floor options regularly crashed.

Both issues are now fixed. EnergyPlus v8.6 will shortly be the new default version.

BUG FIX - PLUGIN GLAZING CHANGING TO WALLS

In the SketchUp Plugin, elements tagged as glazing were unexpectedly being changed to type wall.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - EDUCATION USER WORKFLOW

Educational users are now given the option to choose which product they want to use if they have access to the old Sefaira Architecture web app. Previously they were just taken straight to the old web app.

BUG FIX - TIME OF DAY SLIDERS FIXED

The time of day sliders in the plugin were not working properly, often jumping or breaking. 

This was fixed today

IMPROVEMENT - PROJECTS PAGE LAYOUT

We changed the design of the green "Create Project" button to be clearer as to what it does.

The button enables users to create a new project from a building massing that has already been uploaded. We had observed that it was not clear to users this is what the button did, so we made the link as a text link stating "Create a project with a template model.

We also changed the sequence when you create a project from existing to it flows more logically.

  BUG FIX - ENERGY CHARTS

We fixed a few minor interface and naming issues.

NEW FEATURE - HOURLY DRY BULB TEMPERATURE RESULTS BY ZONE

After running a thermal comfort simulation you can now download a spreadsheet that contains hourly dry bulb temperature results for each zone in your model.

To access, click download in the comfort tab (see below)

NAME CHANGE - DAY SCHEDULES IN SPACE USE

Weekly schedules were previously called "Weekdays", "Weekdays and Saturdays", "Weekdays, Weekends and Holidays"

This was confusing to some customers so it's now "5-days". "6-days", "7-days"

BUG FIX - USER INTERFACE NOT UPDATING FOR NEW ARCHITECTURE USERS SWITCHING CLONES

Some users who have Architecture only were having issues with switching between iterations and with the monthly chart.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - SHADING PRESETS

Some users were finding that shading presets for the top 3 items were not being remembered by the user interface.

We fixed this bug today.

BUG FIX - RESPONSE CURVES FOR COMFORT AND PV

There was a bug causing response curves not to publish results for comfort and PV outputs. 

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - INCORRECT ZONING DIAGRAM SOMETIMES SHOWN

Projects with multiple massing types were sometimes showing the incorrect floor plan when first opened. 

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - FASTER PAGE LOADING FOR PROJECTS WITH LOTS OF ITERATIONS

Projects with lots of iterations containing the same building massing should now load faster.

NEW FEATURE - THERMAL COMFORT VALUES IN RESULTS GRID / RESPONSE CURVES

Thermal Comfort outputs can now be chosen from the results grid to compare options or used in a response curve.

The image shows the metrics that have been added.

BUG FIX - ENERGY TARIFF INTERFACE

Some users with IE reported issues with energy cost tariff and CO2 rate changes not being remembered.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - ENERGY CHART INTERACTIONS

We improved some of the interactions within the energy charts today:

• it's clearer when you can click on items to drill down and see more data
• you can click again on a drill down element to go back to the previous view.

BUG FIX - AUTOMATIC RUNS

In some browsers automatic runs were not returning results. This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - PAGE LOADING SPEED

We made some changes to the way data is sent back and forth to the web-site.

The web app should now load and refresh much faster than before.

BUG FIX - SECONDARY HEATING SYSTEMS IN NATURAL VENTILATION

In some systems, secondary heating systems were not being switched off with natural ventilation, resulting in higher energy use than intended.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - COOLING TOWER SIZING ON ANNUAL NATURAL VENTILATION SIMULATIONS

Cooling towers were being oversized by the auto-size routine used in Annual simulations. Because Cooling Towers are constant flow, this was leading to very high pumping energy for naturally ventilated buildings in particular.

Cooling towers are now set to have zero size for zones which do not have cooling.

BUG FIX - Unique zone name by level instead of floor plate

BUG FIX - GROUND TEMPERATURES FOR SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE CLIMATES

There was a bug discovered in the script we were using to calculate monthly ground temperatures that caused southern hemisphere ground temperatures to be seasonally backwards.

We fixed this today.

BUG FIXES - USER INTERFACE

Issues with natural ventilation controls not triggering new runs was fixed today.

BUG FIXES - USER INTERFACE

Some new UI bugs were discovered relating to features released yesterday. These mostly affected:

- Natural Ventilation controls (not triggering runs on change)

- Thermal Comfort (not always updating)

- Energy downloads (links not appearing)

The second and 3rd items were fixed today.

  BUG FIXES - REVIT ROOMS

i n some instances, Revit rooms were not properly being properly interrupted.

NEW PRODUCT UPGRADE - ARCHITECTURE WEB APPLICATION

Architecture customers were all given a new web application today based on the Sefaira Systems EnergyPlus web application.

This is essentially the web application for which all recent updates on this page have applied.

As part of the launch, all Architecture customers who had previously not used the E+ web-app were provided with 6 case study projects.

This has triggered a transition process away from the old web application starting today.

IMPROVEMENT - SPACE USES COPIED FROM PLUGIN TO WEB APP

We now copy the space use defaults from the plugin across to the web application when projects are created or added to existing.

This copies the standard template values from the 6 plugin space uses for Equipment, Lighting and Outside Air Rate.

If you make changes in the plugin to these values or choose a different space use template when creating a new project these values are not transferred.

BUG FIXES - USER INTERFACE

We fixed some bug fixes related to when the Comfort results appear (sometimes they were not appearing when they should) as well as relating to some tool tips and natural ventilation interactions.

We also fixed a formatting error with the Energy and CO2 tariff pop-up.

BUG FIX - NONE.GET ERROR WITH HEATING + VENTILATION

Heating + Ventilation projects with the heating in the AHU switched off were generating a red-box error with the message none.get. 

This was fixed today. 

NEW FEATURE - UPLOAD YOUR OWN WEATHER DATA

Upload your own weather data to the web app (E+ version only) by clicking on the weather link (top left corner) and choosing "upload .epw" file.

This was a popular request and also replaces the service we provided obtaining new weather files for customers (we can still help you source your own .epw files if you need help)

Customers are responsible for ensuring they have approval to use weather data uploaded commercially. 

More details in this knowledgebase article.

IMPORTANT NOTICE AND IMPROVEMENT - SPACE USE SCHEDULES AND DEFAULTS - PLUGIN AND WEB APP

Substantial changes were made to the default use types in the plugin (E+ version) and web app (E+ version) today.

What this means for you?

Energy results will change in the plugin, especially if you regularly use the ASHRAE baselines.

Why are we doing this?

• Currently, results can vary between the plugin and the EnergyPlus (Systems / Strategies) web application, which creates confusion. These changes will largely solve this issue.
• We regularly receive feedback from customers that equipment loads are too high as a proportion of overall energy. The setting changes should make results more realistic.

What did we change?

• Operating schedules associated with each use type option
• ASHRAE baseline equipment, lighting and ventilation
• Healthcare ventilation (from 4 to 6 air changes)
• Added 6 new space use templates to the EnergyPlus web app (eg Office (Plugin defaults)) that use the same values as the new plugin defaults.

IMPROVEMENT - DAY SCHEDULES FOR INTERNAL LOADS

A new dropdown has been added to the Space Use tab to provide control over the number of days per week the internal loads are applied.

You can choose to have internal loads applied 5,6 or 7 days per week.

A similar HVAC control to appear soon. Currently HVAC operation is 5 days per week.

BUG FIX - NATURAL VENTILATION DROPDOWN

The heating and cooling unit dropdown in the Nat Vent tab got locked after a release last week.

It is now fixed.

NEW FEATURE - TOLERANCE CONTROL FOR COMFORT RESULTS

Sefaira has a tolerance range that passes thermal comfort results just outside the set-point range.

Today we added control over the tolerance range via a settings link in the header of the comfort card.

More details on why we do it here.

BUG FIX - DISPLACEMENT VENTILATION

There was a bug introduced last week with a natural ventilation improvement that caused red-box errors to appear when running Displacement Ventilation projects.

This was fixed today.

NEW FEATURE - COMFORT FEATURE FOR DRY BULB TEMPERATURES

Choose how often you expect zones to be comfortable and Sefaira will tell you what percentage of hours each zone falls within the setpoint range for occupied hours.

Click on each zone to get more information on how comfortable it is.

Use this information to test the viability or relative impact of passive design strategies on a natural ventilation solution and to validate the comfort of the HVAC system.

For more information click this link.

This is a substantial new feature - please feel free to provide feedback on how we can improve this feature or if you do not think results are reasonable.

IMPROVEMENT - NATURAL VENTILATION CONTROLS

We made further tweaks to natural ventilation controls today to reduce extra heating energy caused by windows opening too much in cold conditions.

- Windows now start to open at the mid-point between heating and cooling setpoints.

- Windows are fully open  when space temperatures are 5°C / 9°F above outside air temperatures but now close very dramatically to be only fractionally open as the delta T increases.

IMPROVEMENT - SEFAIRA FOR REVIT - GENERATE VIEWS VIEW NAMING

Generating Views in Sefaira for Revit delivers views that are analysis-ready. We have renamed the Sefaira views created by Generate Views to be as follows:

1. Sefaira Daylighting Analysis View
2. Sefaira Energy Analysis View
3. Sefaira Walls - Exterior (for guidance only)
4. Sefaira Walls - Interior (for guidance only)

The two analysis views are optimized for their specific study. This renaming should help you quickly select the best view to suit the analysis at hand.

NEW FEATURE - KEEP OUR USERS IN SYNC 

For Sefaira account administrators, within the Bulk invite page, you can now use a spreadsheet to drive the list of Sefaira users for your account. Learn more about this new feature here. 

NEW FEATURE - BUILDING USE PRESET CONFIGURATIONS FOR DOAS AHUs IN NAT VENT TAB

Architecture / Strategies users who do not have control over the Air-side tab are not able to configure the DOAS air handling unit properly.

For non-commercial projects this was causing issues, especially when considering natural ventilation.

There is now a drop-down in the Nat Vent tab to choose a pre-set group of variables that configure the mechanical system according to 3 typical building types.

*** We have found a bug with this where it changes the HVAC system back to Fan Coil Units - this is being fixed***

BUG FIX - RUN BUTTON NOT APPEARING

There was a bug introduced by a recent feature that meant the Update button was not appearing for users with some web-browsers.

This was fixed today.

IMPROVEMENT - DEFAULT CHANGE FOR DOAS

The Design Airflow rate for the Air Handling Units is now based on the ventilation rate in each zone by default rather than the manually entered value of 1.5l/s/m2 (0.3cfm/sqft).

This makes it more likely to be correct for a wider range of projects. 

Systems customers can change the setting back to a manually entered value in the air-side tab.

BUG FIX - SEFAIRA FOR SKETCHUP - ENTITY ASSIGNMENTS UPDATE AS MATERIALS CHANGE

Users reported that applying an opaque material to glazing did not result in that plane being tagged as a wall. (The plane retained its glazing tag.)

This issue has been resolved, so when you apply an opaque material to a glazing plane, the entity assignment will update automatically. 

BUG FIX - SEFAIRA FOR SKETCHUP - ENTITY PLANE COUNTS UPDATE AS EXPECTED

Sefaira takes a WYSIWYG approach: visible geometry is analyzed and hidden geometry is not. Users reported that the plane count totals in the Entity Palette did not reflect this approach. 

The issue is now resolved.

NEW FEATURE - PLUGIN USERS CAN NOW CANCEL A RUN

The Plugin supports quick iterative studies. Sometimes, you may kick off an analysis only to realize you still need to make a change or two. Use the Cancel button to stop the analysis so you can get your inputs just right before initiating a new run. 

BUG FIX - BASELINE SELECTOR IN THE PLUGIN

Users reported that a baseline selection in the Properties section of the Plugin would not persist (i.e. the baseline would revert back to its previous state when a run was initiated).

The issue has been resolved: baseline selections now persist.

BUG FIX - NATURAL VENTILATION CONTROLS

Some of the settings in the Natural Ventilation schedules for windows were causing windows to remain closed for some models at strange times.

We have changed the scheduling settings so this no longer happens. 

This should improve the overall performance of Natural Ventilation in terms of cooling.  

BUG FIX - MONTHLY ENERGY CHART NOT SHOWING FOR NEW PROJECTS

The Monthly energy breakdown was not showing for newly created projects.

This has been fixed today .

IMPROVEMENT - ANALYSIS DOES NOT INITIATE UPON PLUGIN OPENING

This year, we've made changes in the plugin to support more deliberate analysis. This latest improvement ensures that analysis does not initiate when you open the plugin. This is helpful when you are considering a large model that may benefit from some refinement before conducting analysis. So, rather than initiating a run before you're ready, Sefaira waits until the "Update Analysis" command is given before generating a performance assessment. 

BUG FIX - RED BOX ERRORS IN NATURAL VENTILATION MODE

DOAS Systems with a heating hot water loop were often generating red-box errors in full Natural Ventilation mode because the heating hot water loop and zone unit fans were not switching off as intended when windows were open.

This was fixed today. It also improved results as it now correctly prevents zone unit fans and HHW pumps from being active when windows are open.

NEW FEATURE - FIXED GLAZING

Tag glazing planes in either plugin as fixed to prevent them from being opened by Natural Ventilation calculations or included in Free Area calculations.

More about openness in this article here.

This is a great way to deal with variations in glazing across the same facade of a naturally ventilated building.

Note that all glazing defaults to operable except for curtain-walls in Revit which default to fixed.

Fixed glazing attributes are otherwise the same as operable glazing (SHGC, U-value etc).

BUG FIX - UI NOT TRACKING SPACE USE CHANGES ON HVAC CHANGE

A user interface bug was causing space use allocations to reset on HVAC system changes with some combinations of zoning and HVAC systems.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - REVIT LINKED MODELS

We fixed two issues with support for Revit linked models: 

• Multiple instances of a Revit link now appear, whereas before only the first instance of the link would appear.
• Daylighting visualization is oriented appropriately, whereas before, in some cases, it would not sync with the orientation of the linked model.

IMPROVEMENT - UI STYLING

We've changed some of the styling and colouring for the zoning tab in particular to make it easier to tell when you are hovering over a zone and when you have selected (blue) or ignored (grey) a zone.

BUG FIX - VAV WARMUP

We noticed during comfort testing that EnergyPlus was not applying warm-up to some zones properly for VAV systems and as a results zone heating was not properly starting until HVAC is on.

This is a bug in EnergyPlus that happens when the minimum turndown ratio is very low for small zones.

We fixed this by increasing the minimum turndown fraction during warmup from 0.001 to 0.01.

For most projects the impact on energy use will be negligible.

BUG FIX - NEGATIVE VOLUMES

A very small number of models were throwing EnergyPlus errors when projects included tiny zones which were being parsed as having negative volume.

These zones are now discarded automatically so these errors no longer occur.

NEW SETTINGS - NEW PLUGIN USERS DEFAULT TO E+

To support our continued transition to EnergyPlus as the sole energy analysis engine for our products, we have changed the default setting for new users from Fulcrum to EnergyPlus. This will only affect users who are new to the Plugin. If you have used the Plugin previously, your settings from your previous session should persist. 

NEW FEATURE - FREE AREA .XLXS REPORT DOWNLOAD

Download a report summarising the free area score for all zones in an iteration from the header of the Free Area Criteria Card.

The report includes gross glazed area and space use type per zone as well as summary outputs for all zones.

CHANGE TO THE DEFAULT ENERGY ANALYSIS ENGINE IN THE PLUGIN

We've made a change to the default settings to help new users quickly adopt an EnergyPlus-only workflows: The default Energy Analysis engine is now EnergyPlus.

This will only affect users who have never used the Plugin before.

If you are already an active user, and are currently using Fulcrum, your settings in the Plugin will persist.   

IMPROVEMENT - CORE ZONE SIZING FOR CAV HEATING

Sizing days did not end up capturing sizing requirements for CAV heating coils in core zones.

Thermal comfort tests showed core zones with persistently cold space temperatures (below setpoint) in core zones during hours of low load because of this.

We fixed this by manually inserting a hand-calculated heating coil size for mid-floor core zones into the .idf file, based on the design airflow into the zone.

BUG FIX - ENERGY PIE MISSING GRAPH FOR INTERNET EXPLORER 11

Some users running Internet Explorer 11 reported missing the EnergyPie graph and other energy graphics.

Today we fixed this bug.

IMPROVEMENT - MONTHLY ENERGY TOGGLE IN PIE CHART

The monthly energy chart was previously located below the energy pie chart. Today we moved it into the same card as the energy pie chart.

It is accessed via an annual/month toggle in the energy pie chart (see below)

CHANGE NOTICE - USERS SWITCHED TO "RUN ON DEMAND MODE"

Today we pushed all users into "Run on Demand" mode where an Update button needs to be clicked to generate a run

All customers were changed over. From now on all new customers default to Run on Demand.

You can still do automatic runs. Further information on run modes in this link.

BUG FIX - REVIT: GENERATE VIEWS FAILING WHEN FILL PATTERN IS ABSENT

During the Generate Views process Sefaira looks for a Fill Pattern called "Diagonal crosshatch".

Before this recent fix, Generate Views would fail if "Diagonal crosshatch" was not found in the Revit project.

This fix creates a Fill Pattern for any affected user so that Generate Views completes successfully.

BUG FIX - USER INTERFACE ISSUES

We fixed a couple of bugs relating to the activation of the Natural Ventilation tab.

We believe we have fixed a rare issue that leaves a user stuck on the projects page with an endless spinning-wheel. if you have this error please contact us support@sefaira.com .

IMPROVEMENT - PROJECT SHARING WHEN NOT THE OWNER

Users can now share a project with someone even if they are not the Project Owner.  Previously only the owner could add new users to a project.

Anyone with access to a project can also remove anyone else from a project so long as they are not the Project Owner.

IMPROVEMENT - SELECT YOUR ANALYSIS MODE IN THE PLUGIN

You now have the choice to run Energy analysis, Daylighting analysis, or both at the same time.

Separating analysis modes ensures neither is unnecessarily constrained by the other. For example, EnergyPlus analysis lags when shading planes exceed 500. Daylighting analysis, however, can handle 500+ shading planes with ease. Decoupling the analyses ensures your Daylighting studies are not constrained by unrelated technical limits.

IMPROVEMENT - CHANGES AND FIXES TO NEW USER HEADERS AND PRE-LOADED PROJECTS

New users get a header in the projects page that provides helpful links and guidance to get started.

We made a few changes to these headers, fixing some broken links and also providing direct access to sample models.

We have also changed the name for Strategies users to New Architecture which reflects the transition in our web-application.

New Architecture customers also now receive a Building Form Library (previously only added to Systems accounts) as well as the 3 demo projects.

BUG FIX - VAV CONTROLS AFTER HOURS

Changes to VAV and CAV - Central Plant after-hours settings implemented Jan 9 2017 were found to have an E+ error. EnergyPlus was treating VAV boxes with a minimum turndown of 0 after hours as permanently off. 

At 9am GMT today we changed the VAV minimum turndown fraction to 0.001 after hours. 

This will ensure correct conditioning overnight to maintain set-back temperatures.

Expect a small increase in energy for VAV and CAV systems.

IMPROVEMENT - ZONES LESS THAN 0.5m2 (0.9ft2) NOW DISCARDED

Zones either drawn in Skp or Rooms imported from Revit with an area less than 0.5m2 are now ignored.

These were previously causing EnergyPlus errors for some models (the minimum zone area E+ can handle varies but was always found to be less than 0.5m2).

This should reduce E+ errors from models that inadvertently have very small rooms or zones.

The zones still show in the web-application as having zero area but they are ignored from the actual E+ model (see below).

IMPROVEMENT - SUPPORT FOR ENERGYPLUS v8.6

Sefaira now supports EnergyPlus v8.6. The EnergyPlus version is controlled on the project page at the project level.

The default version for new projects will remain v8.5 until all tests are complete. The version for existing projects will remain what it was until changed. 

BUG FIX - STABILITY OF ZONING PLAN

The zoning diagram had a tendency to be late updating in some browsers which led to confusion as to the model being studied.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - DAYLIGHTING VISUALIZATION SNAPSHOT FAILS TO CAPTURE ALL INFORMATION

In the process of transforming the UI to a static image, some elements were not being captured appropriately.

For example, the legend would be cut off, and the tooltips illustrating spot metrics would not render properly.

This was fixed today. Downloading a Snapshot should now deliver an output that is immediately ready for the client's review.

BUG FIX - CHILLED WATER AVAILABILITY CAUSING E+ ERRORS

Chilled water availability was hard-coded to switch off whenever outside air temperatures were below 7.2°C. This caused some projects to produce EnergyPlus errors - specifically fan coil and other chilled-water DOAS systems with core zones that had high internal loads.

We changed the hard-coded threshold to -30°C today so chilled water is now available at all times. This error should no longer occur. 

BUG FIX - DAYLIGHTING VISUALIZATION NOT APPEARING ON MAC

The Daylighting Visualization window would not return visualization results for Mac users.

This was fixed today.

BUG FIX - EXCEL SIZING DOWNLOAD

There is a download icon in the results grid (see excel icon below) that supports downloading zone level HVAC sizing for Systems users.

There was a bug with the download for users running in EnergyPlus v8.5 - changes to parsing in the new E+ version meant that only zeros were reported for many outputs.

This was fixed today.

NEW FEATURE - MONTHLY ENERGY SLIDE

A reporting slide can now be downloaded for the Monthly Energy Breakdown The slide will show the view selected so it can be customized to show cost, CO2, or a drill-down view in categories such as heating or cooling

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BUG FIX - PEAK LOAD CALCULATIONS FOR NATURAL VENTILATION PROJECTS

Peak loads were not being calculated properly for naturally ventilated projects because we were changing setpoints in EnergyPlus to control whether HVAC was on or off.

This was fixed today and now peak cooling and heating loads are calculated correctly based on the setpoints that are being used to control the natural ventilation system.

BUG FIX - PERIMETER CORE ALGORITHM

For some models the perimeter core boundaries were being incorrectly cut short (see image below). This was fixed today (new interpretation left, old interpretation, right)

BUG FIX - FREE AREA VISIBLE FOR STRATEGIES USERS

The free area tab was not visible to strategies users. This was fixed today.

BUG FIXES - CHANGES TO CAV, VAV SETTINGS AND WARMUP CONTROLS

The following factors were changed which we considered to be bug fixes:

- For Central CAV systems and VAV systems the box position was remaining open at minimum turndown during "off" hours. This led to higher energy use and lower sizing. The VAV box minimum position when HVAC is off is now zero.

- Warmup time (referred to in the app as Setback to Setpoint Ramp Up time because it can also include cool-down) can be changed within the application and has been shown to be 1 hour but was actually operating at zero hours. This was changed so that a setting of 1 now means 1 hour warmup.

- The default warm-up time was changed to 2 hours after investigations into how effectively the buildings warm up with our current models.

NEW FEATURE - ENERGY PIE REPORT

A reporting slide can now be downloaded for the Energy Pie Chart. The slide will show the view selected at the time and includes a table summarising the usage breakdown.

FASTER LOADING OF PROJECTS PAGE

We improved caching for the projects page so the page loads faster.

BUG FIX - ITERATION ORDER

The order of iterations was reported to not be retained on occasion for some customers and projects. Improvements to the code were released that should fix this.

BUX FIX - REMOVAL OF DUPLICATED ZONES

Some models ended up having duplicated zones when set to one-zone-per-room. This happened in both SketchUp and Revit.

The previous work-around was to ignore zones to get the area corrected.

Duplicated zones are now removed, and this means that only the required zones are left in each model. Models which previously had duplicate zones which were ignored or which had space uses assigned are highly likely to now produce different and possibly incorrect results.

Models where users had duplicated zones produced zoning warnings showing the difference in floor area. If action was not taken to ignore duplicated zones then those projects should be expected to show lower energy and sizing results.

It is strongly recommended reviewing energy models where one zone per room had been applied as the zoning strategy.

BUG FIX - ALLOCATION OF CORE AND PERIMETER ZONES

Some core zones were being incorrectly assigned as perimeter zones. This has been fixed.

This has some implications for existing projects as follows:

- Existing projects that incorrectly had core zones tagged as perimeter zones will now have the correct infiltration rates. This will change the energy and sizing results.

BUX FIX - PERIMETER CORE ZONING ALGORITHM

The Perimeter / Core Zoning algorithm was changed and improved.

This has implications for existing projects as follows:

- Some existing projects where the zoning strategy was set to "Perimeter Core" which failed to generate zoning may now have perimeter core zoning applied which could affect results

- Existing projects where space uses were assigned to some perimeter zones may find that different perimeter zones have the space uses assigned. We recommend checking this.

NEW FEATURE - FREE AREA CALCULATIONS

A new output tab undertakes free area calculations by zone and provides a visual pass/fail output on the floor plan based on a success criteria.

This is a very useful way to quickly see how close a design is to being compliant for natural ventilation before running any comfort calculations.

For more information, click this link.

BUG FIX - CONSISTENT ROUNDING OF ENERGY RESULTS

There were small inconsistencies between the results published in the energy output tab and the results grid. This was caused by different rounding being applied at different times to results. This was fixed.

IMPROVEMENT - DRILL-DOWN INTO MONTHLY CHART

It is now possible to drill-down into the monthly energy chart to see it as a view showing just one subset of energy use (eg heating, cooling, fans, etc).

To zoom back out, click again on the chart.

NEW FEATURE - ENERGY COMPARISON REPORT

A reporting slide can now be downloaded for the Energy Comparison Chart on the Energy Tab. The slide will show the view selected at the time and includes a table summarising the usage breakdown. The view selected can include drill-downs like use type or energy metric (Eg cost, CO2 etc)

BUG FIX - CRACK INFILTRATION

For projects that did not have natural ventilation enabled but did have crack infiltration enabled, the implementation applied an area-change infiltration rate rather than crack flow rate. 

This was fixed today.

GROUP NAME EDITABLE AND SHOWS AREA

The group name now shows the area of the group and can be edited.

Daylight Response Efficiency

Daylight Response Efficiency relies on outputs from Fulcrum, our proprietary energy analysis engine.

Removal of the Daylight Response Efficiency input slider in the Sefaira plugin is necessary as we complete our transition to EnergyPlus.

We still absolutely believe that assessing the energy impact of good daylighting is important. Our next challenge is incorporating this workflow into our new EnergyPlus-based world. We are actively looking at how best to do that.

NEW FEATURE - ENERGY SPREADSHEET DOWNLOAD

The breakdown of energy, cost and carbon values for all iterations can now be downloaded as a single spreadsheet.

BUG FIX - ZONING DIAGRAM

The zoning diagram was not showing the correct zoning approach in some environments and this was fixed.

GROUP NAME CHANGE

Group was previously called Bundle and this was changed today.

NEW FEATURE - MONTHLY ENERGY CHART

In the Energy Output tab there is a new chart showing the monthly energy, cost and CO2 breakdown. This is located below the energy pie chart.

BUG FIX - AREA WEIGHTED VALUES IN COMPARISON CHART CORRECTED

Area weighted values in the compare chart were sometimes calculated incorrectly and this was fixed.

GROUPS INCLUDED IN COMPARE ENERGY CHART

The Compare Energy Chart now shows the results for Groups rather than the Iterations within the Group.

GROUP FEATURE TO SUPPORT DETAILED BUILDINGS

Iterations can now be combined into a group that summarises the outcomes in the results grid. This is designed to support detailed buildings with aspects such as:

- Multiple envelope properties per orientation

- Multiple HVAC systems per building

- Masterplan sites with different buildings

More information is available via this link.

PERCENTAGE DIFFERENCES ADDED TO ENERGY COMPARISON CHARTS

The Energy Comparison Chart now shows the percentage differences between each of the design iterations.

RESPONSE CURVES AND COLLECTIONS FOR OPENNESS IN NATURAL VENTILATION

Free Area and Window opening factors are now changeable by orientation.

Response curves can now be run on window free area and openable proportion.

MECHANICAL VENTILATION CONTROLS FOR NATURAL VENTILATION

There is a new set of controls in the Natural Ventilation tab that provides control over when the mechanical ventilation system activates in combination with the natural ventilation operation.

More information is available in this article.

SETPOINT SLIDER RANGE CHANGE

We extended the range for the zone setpoint slider to have a maximum of 50C.

DRILLDOWN FEATURE FOR ENERGY COMPARISON CHART

Click on sub-groups within the compare energy chart such as heating, cooling, fans etc to see the comparison of performance for the sub-group separately.

CLEARER ACCESS TO TARIFF AND CO2 FACTORS

There is now a clearer link to change the cost tariffs and CO2 factors in the energy output tab.

FLOOR AREA ON ZONING DIAGRAM NOW EXCLUDES IGNORED ZONES

Previously the floor area shown on all zoning diagrams included the area of ignored zones - it now excludes the area for all ignored zones.

MULTI-SELECT ZONES FOR CHANGING SPACE USE

It's now possible to use CTRL or SHIFT to select multiple zones and change the space use for all at once in the zoning tab.

In addition, the cells that are selected are now highlighted so it's easy to see which ones are going to be changed in the plan diagram.

NATURAL VENTILATION FEATURE

A new output tab has been added for Sefaira Systems and Strategies for Natural Ventilation.

The output tab enables you to apply some natural ventilation controls for perimeter zones and then see how the controls impact energy use and HVAC sizing.

The first iteration does not provide comfort outputs but lets you set up a natural ventilation system for your project.

Full details on the Natural Ventilation Feature are available via this link.

LAYOUT CHANGE - ENERGY PIE AND COMPARISON 

The Energy Pie Chart and Comparison Chart were moved to a card layout to support more options and graphics in the future.

BUG-FIX - ENERGY PLUS REPORT DOWNLOADS IN IP

There has been an issue for users downloading the EnergyPlus reports from the results grid when in IP units.

This has been fixed but only downloads if you are in Run-On-Demand mode. You can switch to Run-On-Demand in the settings (found in the top-right corner of the screen)

For information Sefaira runs all simulations in SI units. We convert outputs for the web-application. When you are in Run-On-Demand Sefaira will run 2 simulations in both units so this report can be downloaded.

BUG-FIX - SPACE USE ASSIGNMENTS

There was a bug with Space Use assignment in the Zoning tab introduced with Share Project Outside Firm that affected some users.

These users were not seeing the correct space use options in the dropdown on the Zoning tab.

This has been fixed.

STRATEGIES USERS NOW HAVE COPY PROJECT

The copy project feature on the Projects page is now available for Strategies Users as well.

This feature makes a full copy of the user's project including all iterations and configurations for each iteration.

COMPARE ENERGY FEATURE

We've added a new feature to the Energy Output tab - Compare Options.

This feature generates a graph that we've heard many customers typically need to present as part of their work - a stacked bar chart with energy use for all their options.

This is now generated automatically and can be accessed by clicking "Compare" in the energy pie.

GLAZING RATIO / WINDOW TO WALL RATIO REPORTED IN WEB-APP

The web-app has a glazing ratio override feature available to users in the Envelope tab.

Previously this would pre-populate the values with 0.4 as a default.

It now pre-populates the values with the actual glazing ratio imported from the 3D model. 

CHOICE OF HVAC SYSTEM

The Strategies view of the web-app previously did not have any HVAC options available in the dropdown but the users were able to "manufacture" an HVAC system by selecting the right use type and region.

We've now made the 3 options available to users in the dropdown so Strategies Users can choose between these systems. They are:

- VAV with a rooftop package unit

- VAV with 100% outside air (for lab and healthcare buildings)

- 4-pipe Fan Coil Units.

Strategies users will still see other HVAC systems if a Systems user has selected them for a project.

ZONE WARNING ERROR FIX

There is a zone warning error that pops up in the zoning tab whenever a zoning strategy is assigned and there are issues with that strategy.

We report this as a warning because we make adjustments to enable the model to keep running but want to alert the user to potential issues that would affect accuracy.

One warning compares the total zone area with the floor plate area and notes the difference. This helps alert a user to duplicated zones or filled holes.

The warning previously reported multiple errors per floor for some models. This has been fixed.

IDF DOWNLOAD NOW ADDED TO STRATEGIES VIEW

The strategies view of the web-app now incorporates the idf-download button. This enables the idf file from any iteration to be downloaded.

3D VIEW OF MODEL IN RESULTS GRID UPDATING PROPERLY

The web-app previously had a bug where if you changed the massing, the new image did not show up without a refresh. This also caused the user to see the old massing's floor plate on any "collections" feature.

This bug has been fixed.

SCROLLING IN FLOOR PLAN VIEWS

Users with large models had commented that when a project has a lot of zones, it's hard to see the zone and the floor plan at the same time.

To address this we added a scrolling function to the zone list on all the floor plan views with a list of zones below.

This way you can see the zone information and the floor plate at the same time.

PROJECT SHARING OUTSIDE FIRM

A lot of architects and engineers have been interested in a workflow where 2 customers can work together on the same project.

It is now possible to invite anyone to work on your project and if they have access, they will be able to see it.

To do this, go to "Manage Team" and select "Share Project Outside of Your Firm".

You will be prompted to enter an email address. Any email address entered will show up (to protect the privacy of users). If the email is a customer, they will have access based on their permissions. 

NO HEATING AND ELECTRIC HEATING OPTIONS FOR VAV AHU

We've now added the ability to turn off the heating in the VAV air handling unit for both the VAV Rooftop Package Unit option (System 5) and the VAV with Central Plant option (System 7).

We've also added the ability to switch a heating hot water loop in VAV with Central Plant for an Electric coil.

"RUN ON DEMAND" MODE

Some customers found Sefaira's automatic run confusing or frustrating and we also had identified issues where frequent changes over a short space of time could throw up red-box errors for users.

As a result we've set up a "Simulate when I click the Run Button" mode for users. This is available in the user settings. In this mode a run button will appear once changes have been made instead of having a run automatically commence. The user will then need to click run to get the simulate to start, meaning that lots of changes can be made without starting a new run.

ENERGY COST PIE FIX

The cost for heating in the AHU where "Water" or "HHW Loop" was selected as the source of heat was not showing up in the COST view of the energy pie chart.

This has been fixed.

DRAG AND DROP ITERATIONS

We observed that many customers created lots of iterations (clones) and then wanted to change the order of them to tell a better design story.

To make this easier, you can now drag and drop any iteration in the results grid so that you can have them in whichever order suits you best.

UPLOAD TO EXISTING BUG FIX

We have fixed a bug relating to the "Upload to Existing" option when uploading a building form from SketchUp or Revit.

Previously forms added to an existing project used our old default values for material properties rather than the values from the plugin.

Now the material property values from the plugin are read and applied to a model uploaded to an existing project (this already happened for models uploaded to a new project).

NEW INFILTRATION VARIABLE - CRACK FLOW

Infiltration can now be simulated by nominating the design airflow per perimeter length of window. (l/s per m of window perimeter in metric, cfm per ft of window perimeter in IP).

We're working on integrating natural ventilation into the product. This metric is required for any model that wants to use natural ventilation, which is why it's been added now.

ZOOM AND PAN IN ZONE DIAGRAMS

We had feedback that users wanted to be able to better identify the zones in their model and that for some buildings the zoning diagram was not clear enough.

This improvement added zooming and panning to all zone diagrams to make it easier for you to identify smaller zones within a model or zones within a very large floor plate.

ROOF GLAZING AND SKYLIGHTS NOW SUPPORTED IN SYSTEMS AND STRATEGIES

We've been making lots of improvements to our model interpretation workflow lately and it's great to be able to let everyone know that roof glazing is now supported in the web-application (and on the E+ version of our plug-in).

Planes tagged as glazing in SketchUp or Revit which are on the roof will now come through as roof glazing into the E+ model. There are some exceptions - heavily pitched roof glazing may be missed for very tall roofs but in most cases it should come through without a hitch.

There are also controls on the envelope tab to enable adjustment to the roof glazing assembly U-value and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient.

NEW PIE COLOURS

We changed the colours in the energy pie chart for Systems and Strategies.

The purpose was to reduce confusion between heating and equipment. We'll be making further additions to this section too so watch this space.

"GETTING STARTED" HEADER AND PROJECTS ADDED TO EXISTING ACCOUNTS WITHOUT RECENT USE

We'd had some feedback and observed that it can be hard to get started with Sefaira Systems which is why we made a recent update to the way new users get brought into the product.

We had a lot of requests to provide the same for older users who had not been able to have any success for whatever reason. 

Systems customers who had not used the software in the past 12 months were also provided with sample projects and a "getting started" header to make it easier for them to get going.

ENERGY PLUS VERSIONING SUPPORTED

EnergyPlus (the engine used by Sefaira Systems) is updated on a 6-month cycle by the US Department of Energy. Until today all projects were running on version 8.3 which had been released in May 2015. 

On the project page you can now choose which version of EnergyPlus you want to use from the 3 most recent versions. All existing projects will remain on version 8.3 and all new projects will now be on the latest version, 8.5. Any project can be updated or reverted.

Generally speaking the latest version of EnergyPlus should be expected to run faster and have fewer bugs so it's a good option to choose if you're not sure.

MORE OUTPUTS IN RESULTS GRID

A lot of customers have asked to be able to see HVAC energy as well as cooling and heating energy on an area-weighted basis reported in the results grid. This is particularly helpful for users who are doing passivhaus studies and want to see the annual area-weighted cooling and heating energy. This was added to the dropdown menu today.

IMPROVED ON-BOARDING PROCESS FOR NEW USERS

We had found that many users struggle to get to their first run after being invited to use Sefaira Systems and we wanted to make it easier for new users to learn how to use Sefaira.

To do this we've made the following changes:

- New users given access to Sefaira Systems get provided with 3 sample projects and a building form library automatically when their account is created.

- After entering a password, new users are taken to the projects page where the case study projects and help links are provided in an easily accessible way.

For existing users this should make it easier for you to train up new users in your firm.

IMPROVED ZONE WARNINGS

Sefaira Systems provides warnings to help users realise when our model interpretation process has ended up having a model with more zones or conditioned area than expected.

Previously these warnings have been confusing and were not executed well. We've tidied up the error to provide clearer feedback.

There are now two error types:

1) Perimeter Core Zoning Error - this happens when the floor plate shape crashes the perimeter core zoning algorithm. The warning informs the user that a single zone per floor zoning arrangement has been used instead.

2) Area difference Error - we run a test comparing the total zoned area against the gross area of the floor plate and let the user know where there is a difference and why this may be the case. In some instances two or more warnings can appear per floor - this is due to issues with model interpretation which are being addressed.

The goal of the improved warnings is to help you to decide whether or not to make more changes to the model (such as ignoring zones or doing work in 3D) before deciding whether the results are correct.

COPY AND DELETE PROJECT FIXES

There were a substantial number of bugs identified with the Copy project - mainly reported with not all information being correctly copied across or some users reporting spinning that did not stop. Many of these issues were addressed including:

- Zone space use assignments are now copied

- Iterations and clones are copied in the correct order

- You can now get on with other things while a project copies or deletes

ADD PROJECT DESCRIPTION

You can now add a project description on the Projects page (sefaira.sketchup.com)

MORE RESPONSE CURVES

Response curves are one of Sefaira's most popular features. They enable you to run up to 10 simulations in parallel for 10 values of a single variable and then plot the performance of that variable against up to 2 outputs at a time.

We've now added the response curve feature to quite a few new items in the Systems web-application including:

- Lighting, Equipment and Occupant Density

- Ventilation Rates per person and per unit of floor area

- Rooftop Package COP

- Design Peak Specific Fan Power

- Supply Air Temperature from Central Air Handling Units (AHU)

- Heat Recovery Effectiveness for Central AHUs with heat recovery

Look for the response curve icon near any of the sliders or controls for the above.

IGNORE ZONE

You can now ignore any zone in the model. How does this work - the zone information is completely removed from EnergyPlus. Walls adjacent to zones that still exist become adiabatic (no heat transfer occurs).

How is this useful?

- If your model makes more zones that you need, you can IGNORE the ones that you don't want. This is much faster than making changes to the model and is a workaround if your model has zoning issues such as accidentally duplicated rooms.

- If you have a building with 2 HVAC systems you can now create 2 iterations, one for each system and simply IGNORE the zones that don't apply to that system. You will then get the individual system components and energy. We know lots of customers want multiple systems in a project. This is an interim solution for those customers.

- If your model includes spaces like elevator shafts, atriums, unconditioned areas in their project you can now ignore them (the area gets deleted as well BTW). Ignoring should not create the errors that unconditioned sometimes causes in E+ with failures to converge due to surfaces getting too hot or cold.

DOWNLOAD RESULTS GRID TO EXCEL

The results grid can now be downloaded in its entirety to an excel spreadsheet. 

This feature enables users to take a permanent record of the work they have done and also to generate charts and graphs from the comparative data more effectively.

To download look for the "Download Grid to Excel" link in the top left corner. After you have used it one it will only appear when your mouse is in the results grid area.

NEW CONTROLS FOR AUTOMATED SHADING

New controls added for automated shading. User can now choose whether to control automated shading based on the solar gain on the glazing (default), the external air temperature or the internal air temperature and can adjust the thresholds for any of those components.

IMPROVED VRF HEAT RECOVERY SETTINGS 

The heat recovery settings for the VRF options were changed to improve the zone to zone sharing of heat with this system type. The expected impact on projects is small.

 100% OUTSIDE AIR VAV SYSTEM CONTROL CHANGES

We identified that in most projects the 100% Outside Air VAV system was operating more like a Constant Volume system rather than a Variable Volume system resulting in substantially higher energy results for many project applications.

We adjusted some of the settings sent to EnergyPlus that resulted in the system operating correctly.

For some projects this could substantially reduce operating energy for this system type.

COPY PROJECT

Users can now copy a project on the projects page. This copies all iterations (Clones) in the project and all settings for each iteration.

When you click copy, it will ask you to choose a different location. This will affect the energy cost and CO2 tariff basis and currency and will also modify the weather file if you pick a different location.

If you choose a different location, the whole project will kick off a new simulation.

There is a known bug we are looking to fix for projects with a lot of clones or large models - all projects may not copy before receiving a time out warning (red box error). Ignore this and refresh after a few minutes as the project will still be copied in full. WE are working to eliminate this.

IMPROVED DESIGN AIR FLOW DEFINITION FOR DOAS SYSTEMS

Before: The size of the DOAS Central AHU could only be set with an area-weighted value that was equal for all zones.

After: The size of the DOAS Central AHU can either be the area-weighted value or be based on the higher value of:

- Outdoor air per person plus outdoor air per unit area, or

- Total air change requirements

New projects uploaded from SketchUp default to the new value. Existing projects and projects uploaded from Revit still default to the DOAS AHU value.

ENERGY IN RESPONSE CURVES

Energy use and cost are now included in response curve outputs.

NEW SHADING INPUT TAB

This new shading feature provides users with a more intuitive way to interact with shading. It includes preset options and multiple automated shading device options.

PUMPING ASSUMPTION CHANGES

We changed the way we determine ground loop and WSHP pumping energy to refine analysis outputs. This increased reported energy consumption for water-cooled VAV and WSHP systems.

EDITABLE CO2 FACTORS

Users can now edit the pre-determined values for CO2 emissions per unit of electricity or gas.

OCCUPANCY SCHEDULES & VENTILATION

Ventilation operation schedules had previously been fixed from 8am-6pm Monday to Friday.

This was changed so now ventilation operates Monday - Friday, whenever a zone is "on" according to the HVAC schedule.

Note this change introduced a bug which was unnoticed for 2 weeks. During this time the outside air schedule was higher than it should have been for some projects, especially DOAS systems, and could have caused energy results from simulations at this time to be higher than expected.

ABILITY TO TURN OFF HEATING AND COOLING IN DOAS AHUs

You can now turn off heating and cooling in the air handling unit, to better analyse residential projects and simpler building types.

TOTAL AIR CHANGES & OUTSIDE AIR CHANGES

Improved control of return air changes and outside air changes to enable users to simulate hospital and laboratory type projects.

CO2 emissions can now be viewed in the Results Grid

Option to add an automated external or internal blind to the model

User provided with the option to ignore shading drawn or incorporated in the uploaded 3D model

Support SketchUp 2016

Corrected a bug in the fan power sliders for some fan coil unit types

User is able to switch off the heating and cooling in the air handling unit, enabling them to properly analyse projects including many types of residential project and simpler building types

User can now account for energy impact of humidifying ventilation air in very cold climates. Was a contractual agreement with a customer.

User can now adjust the energy tariffs used for the energy cost calculations in both views of the E+ web-app.

Enable user to choose what type of infiltration measure they use to adjust and control infiltration in the web-application. Supports smoother importing of models from the plugin into the E+ web-app

Revit curtain walls are no longer causing various models to time out.

Improvements to SketchUp Zoning include better operability with EnergyPlus and support for a wider range of programmatic layouts.

Revit Collections are no longer causing errors with uploads.

Systems users can now include a simple Solar PV system in their analysis

Added new system to mimic radiant slabs for heating and cooling

Energy Pie chart can now be seen in terms of Energy Cost as well as raw energy