Honeybee feature proposition - Eso Viewer

Tokarzewski · August 10, 2020, 8:01pm

Sometimes I want to open eso files with viewer such as xEsoView or DesignBuilder results viewer for quick results comparison.

Can this be added in honeybee components?
What do you think, will this be a helpful feature?

chris · August 11, 2020, 3:19am

@Tokarzewski ,

The information in the .eso file is the same as that within the .CSVs that honeybee already parses. Am I correct in understanding that you just want this feature so that you can import results to honeybee from a simulation you ran from DesignBuilder? If so, I have a few suggestions. First, if you have DesignBuilder write out your IDF and you use the “Honeybee_Rerun IDF” component to execute the simulation, it will run the IDF in a manner that gives you the CSV derived from the ESO so honeybee can parse it in. Another option is to run the ReadVarEso function in that comes with E+ and pass in your DesignBuilder .eso file. This will convert the ESO to a CSV that honeybee can read.

Yet another option is, if DesignBuilder can output the E+ SQL file, all of the data in the ESO gets written into this SQL file. The most recent honeybee[+], which is under heavy development has a wide range of components to import data from this SQL. So this might be best longer-term solution if DesignBuilder produces the SQL.

Tokarzewski · August 11, 2020, 8:09am

Hi @chris
I was rather thinking about simple functionality of just opening .eso file in viewer.

At first, I thought it would be nice to have simple true/false to view results after the simulation is eso viewer (similarily to openOpenStudio_ ) or have esoFileAdress as output and then different component for opening eso viewer…

But OS component is already big, maybe this new component could just open eso file from study folder.

Tokarzewski · August 11, 2020, 8:11am

Simple as that

import os
os.startfile(file)

Tokarzewski · August 11, 2020, 8:20am

It uses windows default application by file type.

minggangyin · August 11, 2020, 12:45pm

Hi @Tokarzewski It is great!!! Thanks for your sharing!!!

chris · August 11, 2020, 2:19pm

Thanks for clarifying, @Tokarzewski . You should definitely feel free to turn your component into a UserObject and distribute it on this discussion here. I’m not too inclined to add it to the official release of Ladybug Tools if only because I think most users don’t have DesignBuilder installed or have the .eso file associated with a particular program. But it seems it will be helpful to some users and it’s nice for people to have the option of installing your component if they can make use of it.

Tokarzewski · August 11, 2020, 3:20pm

DesignBuilder software itself is commercial software, but their viewer is free.

With this simple component, it is possible to open any file that is on the windows default app list.
For example .osm .idf .eso .csv .err etc.
openOpenStudio_ input in Export to OpenStudio component would not be needed.
Free - both xEsoView and DesignBuilder Results Viewer are free .eso file viewers.
Although charts, graphs and diagrams created with ladybug are better in many aspects such as rich configurability, 3D capability, streamlined, parametric and very often just beautiful. Eso viewers are typically faster in viewing results.

I am not sure either how many users use or know them.
So I thought I would share a short video and an additional screenshot.

Video presenting eso viewer functionalities

chris · August 11, 2020, 11:15pm

@Tokarzewski ,

Thanks for putting the video together.

Thinking ahead to the new Ladybug[+] plugin, we can probably add a general purpose “Open File” component that calls the os.startfile method like you have here to open any file in a program that the user has associated with the file type. So this will handle all cases where a user wants to open a file in another program, whether it’s an .osm, .eso, .idf, etc. And we actually already have a similar component that just opens the file location of a file in Windows Explorer / Mac Finder:

github.com

ladybug-tools/ladybug-grasshopper/blob/master/ladybug_grasshopper/src/LB Open Directory.py

# Ladybug: A Plugin for Environmental Analysis (GPL)
# This file is part of Ladybug.
#
# Copyright (c) 2020, Ladybug Tools.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with Ladybug; If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
# 
# @license GPL-3.0+ <http://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-3.0+>

"""
Open a file's directory in Windows Explorer or Mac Finder.
This is useful for understanding weather data or simulation files.
-

    Args:
        _file_path: Full path to a file or directory to be opened in Explorer/Finder.
    
    Returns:
        report: Reports, errors, warnings, etc.
"""

This file has been truncated. show original

So, if you wanted to follow the example of that “Open Directory” component there and send a PR to the ladybug-grasshopper repo, I would be happy to review and merge it in. Or you can upload a user object here and I’ll add it to the Ladybug[+] codebase.

Thanks again.