I am building a workflow to perform simulation optimization (currently I am using Octopus and OPOSSUM). The objective is to find out the minimum building energy consumption among all cases. However, as the simulation workflow is quite complex, the energy simulation takes time and hence I added “Re-run IDF” component to run several simulations at the same time. Can I still perform simulation optimization if I run several simulations in parallel? Please advise. Thanks.
Also, which plugin would you recommend for performing optimization?
It depends on the type of optimisation algorithm you are intending to use. This is a very very broad topic so I don’t think we will be able to cover it in detail here.
Generally speaking you can optimise using batch results or just one iteratively. Genetic algorithms for example take a batch of options, determine which best fit your objective and generates a new batch that should get you closer to your objective. This is as far as my knowledge goes in terms of optimisation.
With regards to plugin/software reccomendations for energy simulations: if you are not doing anything too crazy with geometry then I would strongly suggest you take a look at OpenStudios’ Parametric Analysis Toolkit. It comes with the latest versions of OpenStudio. If you install it and then type PAT in your windows search bar you should be able to find it.
PS: I’m not dissing at ladybug-tools with regards to parametric energy studies, however if you are looking to run optimisation on energy simulations Grasshopper will be very brittle and usually break half-way through simulations etc…