0:06 This is a video to demonstrate a
0:08 prototypical walkthrough of the zone
0:11 manager feature within IESV software.
0:14 For the greater context,
0:16 I'm initially showing a mockup of a
0:19 Revit plugin. This will have more
0:21 functions. That's what I'm currently
0:22 showing. But for the context of this
0:26 video and zone management, what we would
0:29 get out of Revit is the gem file. or
0:33 geometry and some BIM data. We would
0:35 take that data to the VE perform load
0:37 calculations and then then send the
0:40 loads data and airflow back to Revit by
0:42 way of our zone manager.
0:44 So within
0:47 the VE what that would look like. So,
0:49 most will be familiar with room grouping
0:51 schemes dialogue. And when you toggle
0:54 that to say HBC zones and zone groups,
0:56 it currently whittleles down to just one
0:58 button here on the left, the nine yellow
1:00 squares. And that's currently called
1:02 create and edit HVAC zones and zone
1:04 groups. So, first of all, that would get
1:06 a rebrand and be called zone manager.
1:08 And the reason behind that is, of
1:10 course, we have a building template
1:12 manager and then right next to it, a
1:14 tabular building template manager. And
1:15 what we were proposing is to have a zone
1:18 manager and right next to it a tabular
1:20 zone manager. So if you were to launch
1:22 the zone manager tool, it it looks
1:25 exactly the same as it currently does.
1:29 Um again with some rebrand instead of
1:33 AHU1 as it currently is that would be uh
1:37 rebranded as grouped zones. Instead of
1:40 no Apache HVAC system, that would be
1:42 called ungrouped zones. and then instead
1:44 of unzoned it would be called unzone
1:46 spaces and that's exactly what you see
1:48 here on the left hand side. So the two
1:50 new functions in the zone manager are
1:52 here on the right hand side in the
1:54 little right panel. The first one is
1:56 based on feedback we received from about
1:58 eight external
2:01 um key accounts
2:04 which do not actually use zones. So they
2:06 want a quick and easy way to autocreate
2:09 a onetoone map from HBC zone sorry from
2:11 spaces to HBC zones. So, it's a single
2:14 click and that should push you need to
2:17 do it down here. There we go. It should
2:22 push every space to be a HPC zone and
2:24 it's a group zone.
2:29 Now, um we've currently included some
2:31 uh some bad apples in here whereby you
2:33 can see some zones with no rooms in them
2:35 and they're flagged as empty. The other
2:37 feedback here that can cause an issue
2:40 downstream is if you do have HVAC zones
2:44 with no rooms in them that can be tricky
2:45 or a bit of a pain to to get rid of
2:47 them. So there's another just single
2:51 click function that wipes every zero
2:55 space thermal zone out of your model.
2:56 And that's the zone manager. So just two
2:58 additional functions and then a little
3:01 teaser here to go to the tabular view of
3:04 zone manage of zone the zone management
3:06 or which may be broadly considered more
3:10 zone management. So um I suspect more
3:12 folks might actually use the tabedit
3:14 view rather than the traditional one
3:15 just because there's more functionality
3:17 available in here.
3:20 Okay. Um,
3:21 within the zone management dialogue,
3:25 it's hopefully very familiar tabedit
3:28 functionality that a lot of V users will
3:30 already be familiar with. Rows, columns,
3:33 import, export, copy, paste. Nothing too
3:36 scary. Um, left to right, you'll see the
3:38 hierarchy of zone groups, zones, and
3:40 then ultimately spaces that belong to
3:42 those zones. And then what will be
3:45 listed is the master room of the thermal zone.
3:47 zone.
3:49 So um what will first of all be
3:52 available to you for an import is first
3:56 of all to collect the geometry i.e the
3:59 gem file from Revit plus BIM data. So
4:01 the BIM data is shown in three columns
4:04 here. BIM ID, BIM number and BIM name.
4:07 Uh that is what some external customers
4:09 have told us that they're looking for
4:11 from Revit both to get out of it and
4:14 also to send data back. The second bit is
4:15 is
4:18 um actually from our own dev team is
4:21 that given the zone manager feature
4:22 doesn't really belong to any
4:24 application. It's doesn't belong to
4:26 model. It doesn't belong to Apache. It
4:29 it it can exist in multiple places. Uh
4:32 the ability to load in loads data. So
4:33 that's what you're seeing in these green
4:35 columns over here. Cooling loads and
4:37 heating loads. So that's just the
4:42 traditional HTG and CLG files available
4:44 in Vista Pro. And of course there might
4:46 be loads of those and the user should
4:48 have an option to choose whichever load
4:51 calculations they they want to in order
4:58 Okay. So um of course if there is no BIM
5:01 data, folks can still use this and and
5:03 send data out wherever they want. Um
5:05 that's just an option to map the BIM
5:08 data that might have come from Revit to
5:10 an ISV model.
5:12 Okay. In terms of the loads, uh some of
5:14 the feedback we got was we don't want to
5:17 send 451
5:19 CFM or liters per second back to Revit.
5:22 We we want to include the oversizing
5:24 factor associated to that. So there's a
5:26 little percentage value available here.
5:30 Some competitor tools have an automated
5:33 um functionality for that. So, we're
5:34 allowing the user to put in whatever
5:37 number they want, be it 10%, 15%, and
5:40 that will turn what's shown here as 451
5:45 L/s to uh be 519, whereby adding the
5:49 15%. To the selected column.
5:52 The other feedback we had was some folks
5:54 don't want to,
5:57 you know, have unusual numbers or
5:58 decimal points. They want nice rounded
6:00 numbers because that will help them
6:02 select grills, diffusers and start
6:05 sizing ducts and so on. So the other
6:08 function here uh on the left is to round
6:11 up the values to the next whatever it is
6:13 uh liters per second or CFM value. We
6:16 know train trace allows you to do 5 CFM
6:18 or 10 C cfm. So we'll we'll just let the
6:20 user put in whatever number they want.
6:23 Let's say they go to the next 10, then
6:25 it'll turn 519 to 520. And this doesn't
6:27 change anything in Vista Pro or anything
6:29 in existing VE report. You're you're
6:32 basically on the way out the door headed
6:34 back to Revit and it's just adding some
6:37 rounded values or some oversized values.
6:39 We did also have feedback that some
6:41 folks don't want to do that. They would
6:44 prefer to do that in Revit. So these
6:46 functions are optional. You don't have
6:49 to do them, but you can.
6:52 Okay. So next um in terms of additional
6:54 columns uh instead of heating and
6:56 cooling loads we we heard for from some
6:58 customers who are working a lot on
6:59 healthcare projects that they wanted to
7:03 see specified total supply air flow and
7:05 specified exhaust air flow. So we could
7:07 potentially add more columns here for
7:09 what data folks want to send back to
7:12 Revit. Um and of course you can turn
7:14 these on or off and they'll appear and
7:21 All right. Um,
7:24 next is a visualization. So, uh, here on
7:25 the left hand side, it's called generate
7:28 zone diagram. It's the same little model
7:31 viewer, input viewer, uh, icon that
7:33 you'll see in the Apache toolbar. It's
7:36 just going to add a zoning option, and
7:38 it's going to kick off with uh, the
7:40 first two are fairly self-explanatory, I
7:42 hope, zone groups and zones. So if you
7:45 were to select say zones and hit apply
7:48 basically that launches model viewer and
7:51 you get a nice color-coded diagram with
7:53 stories explodable so you can see
7:55 multiple floors what the zone diagram
7:57 looks like and zone groups might look a
7:59 little cleaner if it's you know zone by
8:02 floor or something else.
8:06 And then the two columns on the right
8:09 has been a long-term issue with um
8:12 um
8:14 I'll say zoning imperfect zoning
8:17 practices that result in either
8:20 undercooling or overcooling spaces. And
8:23 the reason behind that is if there's a
8:26 thermal zone with more than one space,
8:28 there might only be one thermostat
8:32 controlling both or multiple spaces. and
8:34 one room is controlling the conditions
8:37 in many spaces and that can cause
8:40 uncomfortable conditions. So the second
8:42 to right column is showing you when the
8:44 peak condition occurs and that's I hope
8:46 fairly self-explanatory for an hourly
8:48 load calculation, hourly cooling load
8:50 calculation. The column on the right is
8:53 new and basically what this is saying is
8:56 that the the non-master room has the
8:58 same peak at the same time as the
9:00 master. In other words, it should be
9:02 fine. There should be no overcooling or
9:05 or under cooling in those spaces because
9:07 the peaks occur at the same time
9:10 and that's in the sort of um deeper
9:15 green colored cell. The lighter more
9:20 pale adjacent time cells are basically
9:24 representing spaces that have almost the
9:26 same peak time. So, it's either plus or
9:30 minus an hour before or after the master
9:34 space or master room or it can be plus
9:38 or minus a month at the same time as the
9:40 master room is peaking.
9:43 Um, so like it's it could be peak at 3
9:46 p.m. in June and also peak at 3 p.m. in
9:47 July. And that would be deemed
9:49 acceptable. It's not like 1 hour away,
9:51 but it's adjacent in terms of time
9:53 because it's a design monthly
9:56 calculation. And then in red is a
9:58 non-adjacent time. So we certainly don't
10:04 want one room that peaks at 12 midday in
10:07 um June to have other rooms that are
10:11 peaking at 45 p.m. in September when the
10:13 sun is lower and it's western facing.
10:15 And that's ultimately going to cause
10:17 very uncomfortable conditions in one or
10:20 both of those types of spaces. So um
10:22 that and that's something that can be
10:24 given to a mechanical designer who's not
10:27 necessarily a VE user, right? So the the
10:31 modeler could send that data back to
10:33 um the mechanical engineer who's using
10:36 Revit. So for that model viewer that
10:37 it's basically going to do the same
10:39 thing, give you a visual representation
10:43 of of what those two two columns show.
10:47 And then last is uh export. So you can
10:50 export this table as a a CSV file and
10:52 send it back to Revit back to the zone
10:53 management feature available in the
