February 2012
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Day February 22, 2012

Entries 2 Total

Photovoltaics Primer

Feb 22, ’12 4:46 PM

The least expensive way to provide electric power to a structure is through a PV array. A photovoltaic system is clean, reliable, local, simple, frugal, and even beautiful, if you can afford the steep first cost and have a site or roof that has good access to the sky. The grid as your battery on sunny days is still the best bet in net-metered Virginia, as opposed to being fully off-grid. We’re waiting for battery technology to catch up. AltEnergy is our favorite local vendor.

Green Building Advisor has the details.

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AC Studio: Mesh

Feb 22, ’12 1:49 PM

Highlights today:

  1. Change the custom text of a dimension string to reference their distance from datum model elevations, for example, sea level, or project zero. Bonus: how to change the datum reference of all placed spot elevations globally.
  2. Set the corner and perimeter elevations of meshes first.
  3. Don’t use curves in meshes to keep the polygon count low. This is a corollary of our general rule to keep the node count as low as possible with a mesh.
  4. How to use custom data elevation settings when establishing mesh elevation parameters (sea level, project zero).
  5. Import pdf site info into the model via a worksheet, and view in the model environment by means of trace reference. Otherwise you will need a dedicated layer for each new imported document. Not the end of the world, but using worksheets to keep imported alien data organized is a sound practice.
  6. Cut and Fill calculations: make a copy of the existing terrain, develop the earthwork design on the copy, then use the element info palette to compare cubic volume of the two.
  7. Use gravity to place level dimensions to a mesh surface, as you would with other objects.
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