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Getting started

What you need

  • Windows with Rhino 8.19 or later (Rhino 7 is not supported). Rhino 8 runs plugins on .NET Core by default, which is what BEMGen is built for.
  • Grasshopper, which comes with Rhino 8.
  • To simulate the models later: ClimateStudio (for the output of Convert2BEM) or EnergyPlus 26.2 (for the files of Convert2IDF), with a weather file (.epw). The plugin itself never runs a simulation.

Install the plugin

Download the files of the latest version from the Releases page. This guide describes version 1.10.0, which has:

  • bemgen-1.10.0-rh8_19-win.yak, the Rhino package (rh8_19 means Rhino 8.19 or later, win means Windows);
  • bemgen-1.10.0-rh8-win.zip, the same plugin as a folder;
  • bemgen-1.10.0-examples.zip, the example definitions;
  • SHA256SUMS.txt, the checksums of the three files.

Later versions have the same files with their own version number. If you are updating from an earlier version, read What's new first: version 1.10.0 reads only release 2.4.0 of the Energy Archetype Atlas and refuses the program texts of earlier releases, and definitions saved with 1.0.2 or earlier lose the infiltration values of their presets.

Close Rhino before installing: Grasshopper loads plugins only when it starts. Install BEMGen in one way only; two copies of BEMGen.gha register the same components twice.

From the Yak package

Drag the .yak file onto a running Rhino 8 window, then restart Rhino. BEMGen is not published on the Rhino package server, so the package is installed from the file.

From the zip

  1. In Windows Explorer, open the zip's Properties and tick Unblock; Windows blocks plugins that come from the internet.
  2. Unpack it, and copy the folder BEMGen it holds into %APPDATA%\Grasshopper\Libraries\, so that the plugin is at %APPDATA%\Grasshopper\Libraries\BEMGen\BEMGen.gha.
  3. Restart Rhino.

From source

Building BEMGen from source needs access to its repository, which is private for now. The Grasshopper smoke test describes how a build is loaded.

Check that it loaded

  1. Start Rhino 8 and run Grasshopper.
  2. A BEMGen tab appears on the Grasshopper toolbar with the panels 0 Info, 1 Program, 1 Program Presets, 2 Generate, 3 Simplify, 4 Aggregate, 5 Convert, and 6 Inspect.
  3. Place BEMGen Info (Info) from 0 Info. Its Version output shows the version of the loaded plugin and, after the +, the commit it was built from, in the form <version>+<commit>. Record it with any results you keep.

A first definition

This definition generates a plan and shows it in the viewport; it takes a minute.

  1. From 1 Program Presets, place Dwelling Unit Preset (Unit), Corridor Preset (Corr), and Stair Preset (Stair). Every input of these components has a default, so they work with nothing connected; each shows the remark that its values are illustrative.
  2. From 2 Generate, place Linear Plan Generator (Linear).
  3. Wire the Preset output of Dwelling Unit Preset to the generator's Dwelling Unit input, Corridor Preset to Corridor, and Stair Preset to Stair.

The viewport shows a 24 m × 18 m plan, 3 m high: a stair at the west end, a corridor along the middle, and two dwelling units on each side, coloured by space type, with blue windows. The generator's Plan output reads Plan (6 zones, LinearPlanGenerator).

From here, the workflow guide explains every further step, and the end-to-end example continues this definition up to an IDF file.

Example definitions

The examples zip of the release holds one Grasshopper definition per typology, end-to-end.gh, the definition of the end-to-end example, program-json-office.gh, a preset made from program JSON, schedule-draw.gh, the same with drawn schedules, and doe-atlas-map.gh, the DOE medium office with atlas programs; see Typologies.