I am a new user to honeybee so this may not be the best way of working with the plugin but hopefully someone can offer some insights or solutions.
I am trying to run an electric lighting analysis through honeybee’s image based simulation which I’ve been able to get going without issue but am now encountering a self made problem of sorts.
In the simulation I’ve created a enclosed mesh box which ideally id like to be able to see into via an isometric view, somewhat akin to the sims games in how they cut away walls to reveal internals. (weird request, I know)
I can accomplish this artificially by removing the relevant walls but the light spills out from the room which is less than ideal when adjacent rooms are involved.
Is there a good way to go about accomplishing this, my initial thoughts would be to make the relevant walls fully transparent but still present within the simulation to ensure light bounces off of them and not out into adjacent spaces.
I’ll link my example script and a few images to give a rough idea of what I’m thinking.
Interesting problem. This is likely the solution, wherein multiple section planes can be combined to peek into the room without light spilling out. Honeybee only has a single section plane option as shown below.
But you’d likely need more planes to replicate the Sims effect. The solution proposed in that pdf will need some custom scripting and trial and error. If you are not used to working with Radiance, it will be a challenge to get that method to work with your geometry.
By the way, I tried using Illum as an invisible material to check if Radiance could be tricked into producing those views without section planes. As the screenshot on the right shows, unfortunately, that approach doesn’t work.
In my opinion it might be easier to get this to work with a different renderer that accepts photometric data as input. Radiance’s strict adherence to physically-based results makes it somewhat less amenable to special effects.
If you want something similar to the first image that @sarith has shared and the section is perpendicular to your view then you should check the sectionPlane_ input in image based recipe which will add a cutting plane.
