Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Divination

So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field.
-Sybill Trelawney-


Divination is a subject taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This subject teaches methods of 'divining' the future - or gathering insights into future events through various rituals and tools. The magic taught in this class, as well as the ability to say prophetic things is a branch of magic referred to as "divination."

We here at the office somewhat practice this art of 'divination' (yes, you heard it right, we are somewhat magical) - except we substitute that term with alternative and more-professionally-sound terminology - computational modelling.

Modelling in this context is a simulation approach to building design. In other words, we predict the performance of the building before it is built - this includes energy consumption, occupants thermal comfort, building thermal transfer value, electric and daylighting, indoor temperature and some other stuffs too.

For example, daylighting modelling means we predict how indoor daylighting will look like, in terms of graphics and amount of lighting available, inside the building. This building modelling is carried out using computer software, i.e. Ecotect, 3DS Max, Light Studio, Radiance - which I currently use as one of the modules in Virtual Environment.

It's no rocket science but I still think it's pretty cool.

So, give us a building design, preferably in proper architectural drawings. We'll run it down in our simulation program for whichever subject you wish to know. Should daylighting, for example, is your curiosity, we'll be able to tell you that how much area inside your building will receive good daylighting and also identify which part of that space criticially requires assistance from electric lighting. The objective of this exercise is to explore and maximize natural daylighting potential and optimize electric lighting design.

See basic sample below.



I choose Daylighting as the sample above because if I picked Energy Modeling instead, you'd just be seeing a table with a lot of numbers in it - which is fairly less attractive than the above shown image.

That's a bit of preview about what we do daily - well among other many things.  Perhaps, we're not that exactly different than a group of bomohs. Added with high-technology gadgets, with a magic bowl filled with clear flower-scented water, a bomoh will be able to tell you that, "Bangunan enchek nanti akan jadi sangat bagus, tapi mungkin sedikit panas. Kami cadangkan ambil tangkal ini, tanam kat belakang rumah enchek selama 2 bulan lengkap. Kemudian order la gelas dua lapis untuk ganti selapis gelas yang enchek guna untuk bangunan enchek tu. Pastu gali balik tangkal tu dan letak kat celah2 gelas tu nanti ye. Kompem sejuk elok seronok pengunjung datang,"

Yes, this is such a long entry just to say that - we do magic here.


--
NJB

1 comment:

  1. Najib,

    This is hilarious. I can practically hear your voice telling this story.

    ReplyDelete

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