## Requirements ### Supported Operating Systems Windows 7 or higher Mac OS 10.8 or higher ### Supported Versions of SketchUp SketchUp 8 or higher Pro or free versions ### Supported Version of EnergyPlus EnergyPlus 8.4.0 ## Installation and Setup Download and install SketchUp Download and install EnergyPlus Download and install Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in (note: Admin rights will be required to install these applications) ## Known Issues When working with the Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in, save only your IDF file. Do not save the SketchUp SKP file. Opening SKP files that have an associated IDF file can result in a set of duplicates surfaces that are slightly offset from the original surfaces and cause other problems. Toolbar Tool tips may not work correctly on a Mac if you have made your Toolbars horizontal. The tips also do not show on a Mac in the status bar under any conditions. If you create a group out of multiple EnergyPlus Zones, and then hide a zone, you will receive an error message. Rendering Settings Dialog does not work on a Mac because the JavaScript engine in Safari Can't move zone origin through Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in. Surface Matching may not properly match some non rectangular surfaces. If this happens you can manually match the surfaces using the Object Information Window. An alternative workflow would be to draw them as rectangular surfaces, match them, and then adjust the geometry. See "Workflow for Surface Matcing" at the bottom of the "Matching Surfaces" tutorial for guidelines to avoid this. As much as possible you should avoid using curves (arcs or circles) to create your geometry as it will create a lot of faced surfaces and increase the simulation time. If you do use curves set the segment count as low as possible. Before you extrude a curve in SketchUp you can select it and right click to view the "Entity Information" window. There you can change the number of segments. If you want to make changes to curves via the object info window you have to "View Hidden Geometry" to select individual facets. You can't globally change the whole curve at once. When you are drawing in a zone and extrude your plan up the Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in runs through and classifies all of the newly created base surfaces. Normally this is very quick, but if you have a complex shape, and also if you have the Object Information window and/or Outliner window open it make take longer. If you interrupt the process by exiting out of the zone before it is done, the zone won't function properly. If that happens, you can manually update the unclassified surfaces, or delete and redraw them. ## Troubleshooting ### Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in For all bug reports, feedback, and questions about the Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in, visit the collaborative project Web site at https://github.com/NREL/legacy-openstudio. User support is available via the community moderated question and answer resource unmethours.com. ### EnergyPlus The EnergyPlus forum and knowledgebase, can help with EnergyPlus questions that fall outside of the scope of the Legacy OpenStudio Plug-in. There is also extensive PDF documentation of EnergyPlus under your EnergyPlus install in a subfolder called "documentation". Refer to "InputOutputReference.pdf" and "AuxiliaryPrograms.pdf". The "GettingStarted.pdf" has some sections that explain strategies for breaking a building into Thermal zones. ### SketchUp Link to SketchUp's On-Line Help Guides and Video Tutorials Link to Google's YouTube videos on SketchUp Link to Google's user forum for SketchUp Link to SketchUcation's SketchUp forum ### Other Tools Comparison Tools - You may wish to run comparisons of two IDF files to see what has changed. This comparison is often called a DIFF. A Wikipedia page shows many software options for this. Back to Top

U.S. Department of Energy