WINDOW Software Downloads | Windows and Daylighting

Release Notes:

Installation Files

• WINDOW 7.7.07 Setup Full (Window7_7_07_SetupFull.exe)

  • ​Complete installation if you have never installed WINDOW before

• WINDOW 7.7.07 Setup Small (Window7_7_07_SetupSmall.exe)

  • ​Smaller installation if you have installed previous versions of WINDOW​

• ***** Redistributable libraries *****

  • If you do not install them, you will get DLL errors when trying to run WINDOW

• Radiance for WINDOW (RadianceForWindowSetup.exe)

  • ​Radiance installation needed for the WINDOW Radiance Feature

This version will not update WINDOW 7.6 versions — it makes a completely new version

When you install this new version of WINDOW, a completely new set of directories is created, so that you can have other versions (WINDOW 7.4 and 7.6) installed at the same time. 

Comparisons with Previous Versions

• 100 glazing system set comparison

  • Berkeley Lab WINDOW 7.4.14 vs Berkeley Lab WINDOW 7.7.07 [PDF]

Enhancements

7.7.07

Shading Layer Library

Added Optical Openness input for shading layers in the Shading Layer Library

Matrix Library reader

Has been adapted to use the new Radiance version

Radiance

Updated to Radiance version 5.2, Oct 29, 2018

7.7.01

Compiled with updated libraries

WINDOW (and THERM) were compiled with Visual Studio 2017 and Intel Fortran Composed XE 2018. Hence the need to install these as redistributables when installing this new version

Better Scaling on high DPI (resolution)  monitors

Using the newer Microsoft Visual C++ components allowed better scaling on high resolution monitors. Now WINDOW list views are scaled better so that they are (hopefully) readable.

Glass Library ID Limit of 65000 no longer exists

When importing a glass layer from Optics, WINDOW was restricting the ID to a value no larger than 65000. This limit no longer exists. 

Approval symbol now displayed for Shading Systems in the Glazing System Library

The “approval” symbol (# for NFRC, @ for AERC) is now displayed for records in the Glazing System Library.

Vertical and Horizontal blinds

EnerygPlus now uses different algorithms for the thermal calculations of vertical and horizontal slatted blinds. This resulted in

• Additions to the Energy Plus BSDF IDF file from WINDOW to reflect these changes

Eliminated calculation time estimate for genBSDF calculations

In the Shading Layer Library when Type = THERM, when you click the Calc button, the program generates a “genBSDF” file that can take the program a long time to generate (many minutes). The program used to try to estimate the time it would take to do this calculation; that estimation just added yet MORE time to the simulation (!), so that estimate has been eliminated from the calculation process. Just know that calculating the genBSDF files can take a long time.

Bug Fixes

7.7.07

Database name and path didn’t appear in the program title bar immediately on opening the program

This has been fixed

Incorrect absorptance calculation in BSDF

This has been fixed

Glazing System Report change

Vtc has been changed to Tvis under the Optical Properties section

Angular calculations for some cases (PET) were not correct

This has been fixed

Command line did not support new PermeabilityFactor input

This has been fixed

Angular calculations resulted in R+T>1 in some cases

This has been fixed

Angular calculations were broken when using the matrix method for specular glass

This has been fixed

“Frame doesn’t exist” message

In some cases, the program would display the message “Frame doesn’t exist” in a Window Library record, when the frame actually did exist in the Frame Library. This has been fixed.

When reading BSDF matrix values the program was not using the standard library

This has been fixed

7.7.01

Chromogenics calculations fixed

Previous versions resulted in different results for Chromogenics glazing systems in List and Detail view in the Window Library. This has been fixed.

Window Library

• Changing the name of the Window caused the program to invalidate the results. This has been fixed — the results remain even after a name change. 

Shading Layer Library

• The name of the record in the Shading Layer Library would become blank after browsing to a THERM THMX file (when Type = THERM THMX). This has been fixed. 
• The interactions between fields when defining a Venetian blind (horizontal or vertical) have been refined. For example, some fields would appear to be editable, when actually they were not, based on how the other inputs were configured. Hopefully, this screen is now clearer in terms of what can be edited. Feedback ([email protected]) is always welcome. 
• Calculations for between glass venetian blinds have been changed to use the Waterloo method for all cases (regardless of gap with between the blind and the glass layers) with the SDScalar coefficients set to 0.7 (rather than the default of 1.0). This results in better correlation to our test results. 

Glazing System Library

• The program would not display the Radiance results after finishing the calculation unless you moved to another library and back again. This has been fixed.
• In the Detail view, the IG Height and IG Width boxes were not big enough to show all the significant digits. This has been fixed.

Gap Library

• Feedback boxes displaying the values for Coefficients were not big enough to show all the significant digits of the values. This has been fixed.