Haha, and by "this country" I mean the United States. Pardon me for the nationalism.

@princedragoncok said:

@unknownuser said:

Anyway I'd have a look at ecotect if I were you. Also, if energyplus is to go anywhere it really needs a user manual.

Although it is not an enjoyable read by any means, there is documentation on E+ available online through the application. I have read the basics manual and the input basics manual. I won't say that the documentation makes the program easy to understand for someone who knows very little about simulations or the subject-matter but hey, I wouldn't have expected that anyway. I will try ecotect.

I have heard from others that Ecotect is difficult to use and that it and the SU plugin are alone on the forefront of the energysim movement going on. Like I said, I am new to this whole thing so I am just now being immersed in the issue whereas I imagine most people who are fiddling with the newest projects have extensive knowledge in the field. That being said, I feel like we are humorously behind on having user-friendly technology to run 3D simulations of this kind. Let's just get real, energy efficiency is by no means a new concept, yet the fact that this buggy SU plugin is now considered to be the current benchmark just goes to show us that we have put ourselves in this sticky situation.

 All over the internet in forums such as this one people are talking about how more and more companies are going 3D and going green, either because they are sensible or because legislatures are being sensible. Meanwhile, I am wondering why we did not jump on that wagon at the turn of the millennium! As of right now I do not have the programming knowledge to create something like a finished version of the SU plugin; however, I *do* have a good grip on what computers are immediately capable of and I fail to see why it is so difficult to put something together with nails rather than tape. Like I said before, I think that we are playing catch up right now--it's not that it's immensely difficult to make a user-friendly sim, it's that noone had the foresight to make it happen sooner. I know I sound awfully critical for not having the know-how and not even having the know-of until recently, but I truly think that had enough people been told/allowed to put their heads together we would already have DoE-endorsed software and this country could be a lot more proactive concerning energy efficiency.

Does anyone else have comments on the new E+ plugin?

Thanks for your help. I am not very experienced with the field in which I am currently working but I was basically assigned to explore the plugin to see whether or not the user-interface was solid and worth switching for. I've learned quite a bit so far but I agree with you that this beta is much too buggy and upgrades are critical for the plugin's success. I do have the latest version and I have sent a couple messages to their tech team but have not received a response. I imagine they are more likely to just take the comments and consider the fixes and not send anything my way. After a couple months of being out I would hope they are not far from another release. Thanks again.

Hello all, my name is Craig and I am new here. I have an internship right now in Mechanical Engineering and right now my task, as a junior Computer Science major, is to figure out how to use SketchUp to make EnergyPlus a lot more user friendly. I have dabbled around in both applications separately and have also used the new DoE plugin but I am having a bit of a problem.
You see, I have been trying to load the E+ ready made input files as drawings in SketchUp. It appears as though the drawings have already been modeled for use with the E+ simulation (they have zones and identified building materials) but when I attempt to run a weather-data annual simulation I get an error message:

SKETCHUP: This does not appear to be a SketchUp model!

I am confused as to how this is possible considering the sample models draw just fine on Sketchup. Even more confusing is the fact that when I draw from scratch within a SketchUp-established E+ zone, SketchUp still gets lost and outputs the same error message. I have tried reinstalling everything to no avail--I can run simulations using only E+ but Lord knows I can't understand the data or figure out what to tweak in the input editor without having a tutorial to follow.
Any help would be terrific--the plugin seems so new and it is very difficult to Google search my problem so close to the release date...ironic? Thanks guys.