Welcome!

Project Title

BLUE PRINT GREEN DESIGN

Project Description

BLUE PRINT GREEN DESIGN is an interactive, free, accessible and low-size app for anyone who wants to create and visualize simple building plans in 2D, calculate and visualize their heat loss, and get energy analysis for each component to make informed decisions to improve energy efficiency.

The “Home” screen allows users to design layouts by defining the project name, location, and dimensions, as well as defining rooms, walls, windows, doors, floors, and roofs. The “Detail” screen allows users to either directly input component U-values (thermal transmittance) or enter material layers for each building component. The app uses web-scraping to fetch thermal conductivity values for component heat loss calculations. After the heat loss calculations, the “Calculate” screen breaks down the building’s heat loss in tabular form and graph visualization, detects the least efficient components, and gives prioritized retrofit suggestions.

This project aims to integrate design and basic sustainability evaluation in a user-friendly, visually compelling interface and make it free, accessible and low size with an easy learning curve.

Run Instructions

Running the Project

1. Main File: Run main.py in an editor (or IDE) that supports Python.

2. Required Libraries/Modules:

   • cmu_graphics: A library for creating interactive graphics.
   • requests: For web scraping to fetch material thermal conductivity data.
   • beautifulsoup4: For parsing HTML content.
   • webbrowser: To be directed to web as needed (e.g. degreedays.net for HDD). Native Python, no need to install.

Installation Instructions

Run the following libraries to install the necessary libraries:

• cmu_graphics: pip install cmu-graphics
• requests: pip install requests
• beautifulsoup4: pip install beautifulsoup4

Shortcut Commands

Key Navigation

• 0: Navigate to the Home Screen.
• 1: Open the Draw Screen to create building plans.
• 2: Open the Detail Screen to add U-values or material layers to each component.
• 3: Open the Calculate Screen to display the calculated heat loss and energy report.

Component Detail Shortcuts (on Detail Screen)

• w: Enter U-values or material layers to Walls.
• g: Enter U-values or material layers to Windows.
• d: Enter U-values or material layers to Doors.
• f: Enter U-values or material layers to Floors.
• r: Enter U-values or material layers to to Roofs.

Drawing & Adding Components

• Add Components (Buttons on Screen):
  • Use +ADD WINDOW, +ADD DOOR, +ADD ROOM buttons in the Draw Screen to add respective components.
• Undo:
  • Use UNDO WINDOW, UNDO DOOR, UNDO ROOM buttons in the Draw Screen to remove the most recently added window, door, or room.

Data Input & Updates

• Heat Loss Calculation:
  • Press anywhere on the screen to update and print building details, heat loss coefficients, and component information to the console for testing and validation.

Mouse Events

• Mouse Clicks: Used to add components such as windows, doors, and rooms to the building.
• Mouse Hover: Used for button hover over effects.

Gallery Actions

• Reset Gallery: Click the button RESET GALLERY on the Home Screen to remove all saved building projects from the gallery. Click the button SAVE & CLOSE to save a project to the gallery.