Simulation Display Options

The General tab on the Simulation Display Options Panel provides options for controlling the data displayed in the Simulation data display screen. General Display Options are grouped under three headers:

Data - control the data displayed.
Y-axis - for customising the layout of the Y-axis.
Appearance - for customising the style and appearance of the graphics.

The Detailed tab on the Display Options panel provides controls which allow you to select exactly the data items you wish to display.

Data Options

Interval

Select an interval from the list:

1-Annual - show data for the entire simulation.
2-Monthly - show data broken down by month.
3-Daily - show data broken down by day.
4-Hourly - show hourly data. Useful for checking operation of equipment and comfort conditions for particular design periods.
5-Sub-hourly - show data recorded at time step intervals (2 and 6 intervals per hour depending on the 'Time steps per hour' calculation option). Useful for detailed checking of building performance.
6-Distribution - temperature distribution curves showing 'hours at', 'hours below' and 'hours above' temperature levels in 1°C temperature intervals during the occupied period. Note that 'Data' (below) should be set to 3-Comfort to get temperature distribution curves.

Note: be aware that requesting Hourly and Sub-hourly results in large buildings and/or long simulation periods can result in very large data sets which take a long time to read in after the simulation.

Data

Select an option to indicate the data you wish to display:

1-All - fabric and ventilation heat gains/losses, internal gains (not Heating Design), temperatures and outside dry-bulb air temperature.
2-Site data - all site data.
3-Comfort - inside air, the radiant and comfort temperatures, relative humidity, ASHRAE 55 and various comfort indices. If you set Interval to 6-Distribution you get temperature distribution curves.
4-Internal gains - internal gains including equipment, lighting, occupancy, solar and HVAC heating/cooling delivery.
5-Fabric and ventilation - heat gains to the space from the surface element (walls, floors, ceilings etc.) and ventilation. Negative values indicate heat loss from the space.
6-Fuel breakdown - fuel consumption broken down by system category (building level only).
7-Fuel totals - fuel consumption broken down by fuel (building level only)
8-CO2 production - CO2 production by weight (building level only)
9-System loads - energy loads for various categories of system component (building level only)
99-Custom - a custom template is used to define the data to be displayed. In this case, the data to be displayed can be selected from the Detailed tab of the Display options panel. When the data to be displayed has been defined using the checkboxes, press the Apply changes Display options toolbar icon to save the selection set as a template. This can then be selected in future data analysis sessions using the Custom browse setting immediately below. Note that custom display templates are stored only for the current project.

Click here for information on the meaning of the data.

Tip: to update the data using different calculation options, click Update (Ctrl-U).

Custom

When Data is set to 99-Custom any previously created display templates can be selected here.

Show as

You can display the data in one of four ways:

1-Graph - displays the data on the screen in graphical format. The default option.
2-Grid - you should select this option to export data in csv spreadsheet format. This export format can be loaded to Results Viewer for further analysis and comparison.
3-Graph and table - the same as 1-Graph but also includes a basic tabular display below the graph.
4-Table - the same basic table format displayed for the 3-Graph and table option, but without the graph.

Days per Page (Simulation only)

DesignBuilder displays all simulation results together, but you can select how many days are displayed at any one time using The 'Days displayed per page' option. A value of 365 means you will show all simulation data on the same screen and a value of 1 means you see each day on a separate screen.

Note: you can use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the graph to see simulation results not currently displayed.

Normalise by floor area

Check this option if you wish building, block and zone data to be displayed 'per floor area', i.e. /m2 or /ft2, and surface and opening data to be displayed 'per surface or opening area'.

At building, block or zone level you can select the floor area to use as the denominator from the options:

1-All areas - Total floor area is used,
2-Occupied area - just occupied floor areas are used.

Note: you can only select 1-All areas if the building and block data includes occupied areas as set in Include unoccupied zones in block and building totals and averages option in Simulation Output options, Likewise you can only select 2-Occupied area if the building and block data excludes occupied areas.

Y-Axis Options

These options give you control over how the Y-axis is displayed.

Lock min/max

This option locks the extent of the Y-axes so that they keep their current maximum and minimum values. This allows consistent comparison with the future results display. The Y-axis keeps its current settings until you unlock it again.

You can achieve the same effect by clicking on the 'Lock Y-axis min/max values' toolbar command.

When you lock the Y-axis the current settings are stored and displayed for each of the available Y-axes. You can edit any of these to get a more precise setting. Remember to click on the Apply button when you are ready to register a change to any numeric display option data.

Overlap multiple axes

Option allows you to save space on the Y-axis allowing different axes to overlap.

Separate axes

Check this option to add a vertical space between each of the displayed axes.

Appearance

You can control the details of the presentation of the graphical output by making selections on the Display Options panel under the Appearance header.