The Daylight plug-in automates daylight requirements checking according to Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and other local standards, simplified method. Set the required minimum Windows-to-Floor Area Ratio of each room and the plug-in checks automatically whether the room meets your given requirements. The Xinaps Daylight Ratio plug-in gives a quick overview how much daylight each room has, given by the glass areas in all curtain walls and windows from each room. The plug-in uses the floor area of all defined rooms in the model, in order to define floor areas needed to calculate daylight area rate, and in order to get the room bounded surrounding walls, windows, and panes.


Required Revit instances

Rooms, spaces, or areas

The plug-in uses the floor area of all defined rooms, spaces, or areas in the model. Without rooms, spaces or areas the plug-in cannot define floor areas needed to calculate daylight area ratio, and the plug-in cannot get the room bounded surrounding walls, windows, and panels. 

With an offset of 2 feet (600 mm) the plug-in searches for glazing panels surrounding each room. Although the window is not adjacent to the wall or the wall is not a room boundary, the plug-in still finds the glazing panels around each room.


Glass material in Windows, Doors, Curtain Walls et al.

To get a daylight area of a room, surrounded windows and/or curtain walls need to have glass material. The Daylight Ratio Evaluator plug-in looks for materials with a name containing “glass” or “glazing” or any other material name that you have set in the settings menu. The area of panels containing this material will be included in the daylight area.
Read more on Daylight Ratio Evaluator Settings>>


The main Interface

The main interface gives you a quick overview of the Daylight results for your building. The percentage of Daylight Comfort in your building that meets the requirements is shown at the top, as well as the window-to-floor area ratio and the window-to-wall area ratio. 

At the left side of the interface three different tab buttons are displayed which can be selected by clicking on the icons and different tables will be shown.


Window-to-floor ratio

In the window-to-floor ratio tab you can easily see whether your room, floor level or area plan meets your requirements with the green and red indicator. In addition different data is displayed:


  • Floor area

    The floor area of the room. This is the same value as the "Area" property of the room in Revit. For Swedish and Norwegian a balcony area can be added to the floor area.

  • Gross Glass area

    The sum of the gross areas of all glazing panels adjacent to the room. The area already excludes parts of the glazing panels outside the room adjacency, and optionally excludes the interior glazing.

  • Net Glass area

    The area excluding the area below minimum heigt above floor, the glazing bead area, the shading factor and the transparency factor.

  • Actual

    The actual calculated Window-to-floor area ratio, according to the formula: Actual = Net Glass Area / Floor Area.

  • Required

    The required minimum rate between the floor area and the glazing area of a room. You can define this value per room. If the required value is bigger than the actual value, the room is not correct, and the room check indicator in front of the row will be red.


Window-to-wall ratio

The window-to-wall tab gives you an overview of the different facades of your building, categorized by orientation. In the dropdown menu at the top you can select all orientations or select a specific orientation. 

The table demonstrates the rooms with their names and the floor they are located. 



  • Number
    The number of the room
  • Room
    The name of the room
  • Floor L
    The floor level of the room
  • Gross Glass
    The sum of the gross areas of all glazing panels adjacent to the room. The area already excludes parts of the glazing panels outside the room adjacency, and optionally excludes the interior glazing.
  • Net Glass Area
    The area excluding the area below minimum height above floor, the glazing bead area, the shading factor and the transparency factor.
  • Orientation
    Orientation of the facade on a 360 degrees scale.
  • Slope
    The slope of the facade in relation to the surface level
  • Facade
    The area of the total facade
  • Solid
    The area of the facade that is non-transparent material
  • Calculated
    The percentage of the facade that consists of transparent material


Windows

The windows tab gives you an overview of the windows.


  • Category

    The type of Revit instance. It can be glazing in a door, in a window, in a curtain wall etc.

  • Familiy and type

    The name of the family and the name of the type where the glazing area is found in.

  • Gross Glass area

    The gross glass area of the glazing panels in the window.

  • Area lower glazing

    The area of the glazing panels below the minimum height above floor. This area will be excluded. This column is not shown if the minimum height above floor is set to zero.

  • Glasspanels

    The number of glazing panels in the window.

  • Alpha (Dutch, Swedish)

    The average horizontal angle of all outside shading obstructions below the window, as defined according to NEN 2057. You can edit this value by yourself. This column is not shown if checkbox NEN 2057 is disabled.

  • Beta (Dutch)

    The average horizontal angle of all outside shading obstructions above the window, as defined according to NEN 2057. You can edit this value by yourself. This column is not shown if checkbox NEN 2057 is disabled.

  • Shading factor, or factor

    The shading reduction factor as given by the alpha and beta values defined for the window.

  • Transparency factor, LT, or F;LT (Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, None)

    The transparency factor of the linked glazing material.

  • Net glazing area

    Net glazing area = ( Gross Glazing area - area lower glazing ) x shading factor x transparency factor.

Reporting

Visualization

By opening the visualization you are able to view a A360 viewer like 3D visualization showing colors 

  • of the rooms meeting the daylight requirements (green) and not meeting requirements (red)
  • of the rooms the the daylight ratio (0% and up)
  • of the walls with daylight ratio (0% and up)


Revit Floor Plan

When clicking the Revit floor plan button, for every floor level a new floor plan view will be created, and all rooms will be coloured with the daylight ratio (0% and up)


Report

When clicking the Report button, a Word report will be generated containing all 


Excel

By right clicking any table in the application, an Excel sheet of the table can be generated, containing all cell values.

 

Revit shared parameters

The following parameters will be set in the Revit project when clicking save (or save and close)

These values can be accessed by the element properties in Revit, and by the Revit schedules.


Rooms:

  • Glass Area = The calculated net glass area of the room. [readonly]
  • Required Window-to-Floor Ratio = The demanded ratio between the floor area and glazing area in the building envelope of a room. [editable]
  • Window-to-Floor Ratio = The ratio between the floor area and glazing area in the building envelope of a room. Daylight Area Rate [%] = Glazing Area / Floor Area * 100% [readonly]

windows/Doors/curtain panels [all readonly]

  • Gross Glass Area = The area of all glazing panels in the window element.
  • Panels = The number of glazing panels found in the window element.
  • Glazing Bead Area = The glazing bead area underneath the mullion or the window frame.
  • Shading Reduction Glass Area = The area of the glazing reduced by shading
  • Area Lower Glazing = The glass area below a defined height above floor.
  • Spandrel Panel Area = The opaque glass area in front of spandrel panels.
  • Net Glass Area = The glass area excluding spandrel panels, frames and mullions, shading, transparency ratios etc.
  • Shading Factor = The area of the glazing reduced by shading 
  • Transparency Factor = The average transparency factor of the glass panels.
  • Transparency Reduction Glass Area = The glass area to be reduced as a result of the transparency factor of the glass panels.

Create Elevation and Section view

By right clicking a window in the window table, a Revit section or elevation view of the window can be created, including a window tag with the calculation results of the window. You can also do this for doors, curtain walls an others.

Highlight in model

By right clicking a row containing a room, space, area, window, door in the table, and clicking "highlight in model" the appropriate elements will be shown and selected in the active Revit view.