A Method to Compute Shadow Geometry in Open Building Information Modeling Authoring Tools: Automation of Solar Regulation Checking

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper introduced a method to compute the exact shadow geometry necessary to evaluate shading factors. This method will be implemented in BIM authoring tools. 

The introduction is generally describing the development of the BIM and its interoperability with BEM, but it needs to be furtherly detailed to include previous efforts to integrate specifically shading geometry in BIM tools. it is also important to emphasize on the existing gap and why the results from this research are important. 

The structure of the manuscript is not easy to follow. The authors need to name a methodology section to make it clear for the readers, and to separate the methods used, from the obtained results section. The authors need to establish a chart for the flow of the research methodology.

The validation of the results is not fully detailed as the RTAADOM official Excel sheet S^refR and those computed through by the automatic analysis of an IFC file S^bim R, are presented without sufficient information about these tools. The authors are invited to include figures and numbers from the excel calculation sheet and the IFC files to support the results and verifications in addition to figure 3 and 4.

The use of weak English language is an issue. For example, the authors use (this is a shame), the use of uncertainty terms like in the sentence (as far as the authors know). Also, in several parts of the manuscript, it is preferable to use formal indirect language instead of direct language, for example, this method has been used (formal) instead of, we used this method (informal). The manuscript needs to be proofread by a native/professional in English.

The use of weak English language is an issue. For example, the authors use (this is a shame), the use of uncertainty terms like in the sentence (as far as the authors know). Also, in several parts of the manuscript, it is preferable to use formal indirect language instead of direct language, for example, this method has been used (formal) instead of, we used this method (informal). The manuscript needs to be proofread by a native/professional in English.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for submitting your work to "Buildings" journal. Please follow my comments to improve the quality of your paper.

1. In the title, please use open form of the BIM.

2.  Do the authors develop a general framework or is this study a case study?

3. Instead of "we" in  a scientific paper, please use "this paper, the authors etc.."

4.  Please check the English of the paper. For instance:  to reducing Greenhouse Gases (GHG) creation?

5.  Line 25: Solar energy input is a very general term. In a dynamic software, we do not model solar energy, we model building and environment.

6.  There are many software names, however, the readers may not familiar with these softwares. What is the aim of BEM? Why do the researchers use the BEM software?

7. What is IFC open standard?

8. If this study is a general framework, please show the method of this framework with a workflow schema. For instance, what if the readers do not access a software and regulation you used? A general framework should be used for all researchers around the world. If this paper is a case study, please change the title and methods.

9. Line 187: What do the authors mean with lightning?

10.  Where to use this algorithm in Page 7? 

11. Why the authors select these geometries in this computational method? Some geometries are utopian (Fig1 A3 and Fig4 a). 

12. Line 252: "From our  point of view, the results are sufficiently good to validate the implementation." Please change this sentence, validation should be in scientific way.

13. The main problem is that can the all researchers implement and/or compute shading factor for all geometries? 

14. Limitations and novelty of the paper should be discussed.

Minor faults should be checked.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The resubmission does not include a track changes version, and it is difficult to track the changes using the response to reviewer comments, since it does not mention page and line numbers. 

English proof-reading required, in the absence of track changes version. 

Author Response

 Thanks to insightful reviews, we have decided to majorly revise the paper according to the reviewer's comments. We have deeply modified the first part of the paper, i.e., the introduction and the methodology section, and improved the final sections. The technical parts have mostly stayed the same. In other words, even if the paper's contribution is the same as the first submission, this new version could be considered a new paper.
The attached file, while quite messy, reflects the massive changes that have been made to answer the reviewer's comments. This file should be used as a guidance to identify the region of the paper that has been modified (red: suppression and blue: addition). 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, i appreciate your effort for improving the quality of your paper. I have no further comments. Please re-read carefully when the proof stage for Minor mistakes.

Some minor mistakes should be corrected. 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

In Figure 1. authors need to separate the figure title from the explanation of the content of the figure. The content of the figure should be provided in the text, also the figure should be mentioned in the text before the figure.

The title of the table should be above. And should be mentioned in the text before introducing the table. (table 1 is not complying)  

It is better to merge the conclusions and perspectives in one section

Still minor English proof reading is necessary, preferably by English professional.

Still, it is not convincing to include appendix as the few figures and tables can be incorporated in the body of the paper.

Still minor English proof reading is necessary, preferably by English professional.

Author Response

• Concerning the Figure 1, modifications (text and style) have been done to match the requests.
• Table style has been corrected and homogenized across the paper.
• Conclusion and perspectives have been merged
• The appendix has been removed and the content has been added to the body of the paper. See Fig 2, Table 1 and Table 3.
• The English version of the article has been revised and corrected

Thank you once again for your valuable insights and the time you have dedicated to reviewing our work. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will be instrumental in enhancing the quality of the manuscript.

with kind regards,