Reflection Impact Study

[Justin Hunt]

Heres an interesting one,

 

We have been requested to compile a reflection impact Study.

 

Basicaly the site is a quary surrounded by houses. In the bason of the quary will be 4 large scale retail buildings. The council was to know what impact the sunlight reflecting off these buildings will have on the surrounding residential buildings looking down onto them. ie the glare off the roof

 

Question what would be the most effective methode to produce this? My thoughts were to do a standard solar study, but looking from different points around the quarry. The brightness of the rooves will illistrade the light reflecting off.

 

Any suggestions would be welcome. I am using Max9 and Mentalray

 

JHV

[John Dollus]

you need an electrical engineer to do an analysis not a 3d program.

Sounds like they are concerned with veiling reflections and glare which would be quite an effort at this scale for any of the render engines we have available today. You can simulate it with post processing, specular bloom and tweaking the levels/color mapping but it would be an approximation at best and would not hold up in a court if homeowners decided to pursue litigation.

A good example would be shining a flashlight on a mirror and seeing the effect of the reflected light on an adjacent wall. This involves reflective caustics and is hard enough to do in a small controlled environment much less an open outdoor site where you are trying to focus the indirect intensity of the sun across a quarry through someone's bedroom window.

 

btw, if the rooftops there are constructed similarly to here, the tops are usually a very dark roofing material that won't contribute significantly at all to reflected light. Most would come from the exterior walls and glazing and could be a significant source of discomfort for home owners.

[RyanSpaulding]

Your CLOSEST bet is Maxwell...but you'd have to get the materials properties SPOT ON for this to work.

 

Honestly, I don't know if this is possible without light simulation software. Current 3D rendering can get close...

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

this post reminded me on the now infamous story problem the disney concert hall had with glare. i did a quick google search, and it spit back this article. it might be a starting point, or at least an example of how it has been researched in the past.

 

http://www.sbse.org/awards/docs/2005/1187.pdf

[Justin Hunt]

Thanks, I'll pass the PDF onto the architect.

 

What I have done is built a contour model from the survey data provided. Thankfully it was the best and cleanest 3d contour model I have ever dealt with.

 

I then placed cameras at various places to check how visible the buildings will be. and then did a solar study from these points. The other is I have cut sections parallel to the sun to indicate the sun angles at various times of day.

 

two things became evident. Firstly the offending buildings were not easily visible due to the stepped/ terraced nature of the quarry. and secondly its really only late afternoon, during winter that the sun is an issue. Even then the sun is causing more glare than the roofs.

 

I have suggested getting in contact with an ESD expert, which they will do if the council asks for more info. Crazy thing is that even the council doesn't even know what they are asking for.

 

John - Mostly the roofs are made with Zinc and one of the buildings is painted a deep green.

 

Thanks once again for the suggestions

 

JHV