False-color display
Color the building geometry directly by result quantities such as air temperature or cooling load: configured views, color scale, min/max range, hide thresholds and point-in-time analysis
Overview
The false-color display colors the building geometry in the 3D scene by a simulated result quantity, e.g. the air temperature per room at a selectable point in time. The data basis is the output files of the last simulation in the project’s result directory (see External evaluation). Which quantities are available therefore depends on the configured outputs.
Access
The results view is opened via the button 
Results in the left main toolbar. It shows the 3D scene with its own toolbar on the right edge:
| Tab | Function |
|---|---|
| Overview | Aggregated key values (peak loads, annual energy, maximum temperatures, areas) |
 False color | False-color display on the geometry (this page) |
| Building | Line diagrams of the building result quantities |
| Network | Network result diagrams (only relevant for projects with networks) |
Result status and reloading
At the top of the results panel — visible on all tabs — a status line summarizes the state of simulation, project and data cache (e.g. Results up to date, Simulation running, Project changed since last run, No results yet). The Details button expands the individual entries Simulation:, Project:, Result directory: and Data cache:; the button next to it lets you open the result directory in the file manager. With 
(“Reload result files from disk”), all result files are read in again — necessary after another simulation run. During a running simulation, VICUS Buildings checks the file status automatically once per second.
Configured views
The section Configured views lists the false-color views stored in the project with the columns Quantity, Unit and Point in time. A status symbol per row indicates the data availability; the legend below explains the symbols:
Up to date — data is read in and up to date
Reload — file present but not yet (or outdated) read in; clicking loads the data
Missing — required result file is not yet or no longer present
A single click on a row loads the data (from disk if needed) and shows the view in the 3D scene. The buttons below the table:
Add a new configured view from a template — opens the dialog Create new false-color view (see below)
Update selected view with the current configuration — saves color scale, range, thresholds and point in time into the view; only active when the configuration differs from the saved view (warning notice Configuration differs from saved view.)
Copy current configuration into a new view — asks for a new name in the dialog Enter diagram name (suggestion with the suffix ” (Copy)”)
Remove selected configured view
All four actions are undoable; the views are saved with the project and are available again after reopening.
Creating a new view from a template
The dialog Create new false-color view shows under Quantity selection the available templates with a Filter: (input field Filter by quantity name…) and the option Show available only active by default (hides templates without a matching result file). Under View name, a unique name for the new view must be given; duplicate or empty names are rejected.
The following templates are built in for buildings (room quantities, all surfaces of the zone are colored):
| Template | Result file |
|---|---|
| Air temperature | AirTemperature |
| Equipment heat load (mean) | ConvectiveEquipmentHeatLoad-mean |
| Lighting heat load (mean) | ConvectiveLightingHeatLoad-mean |
| Person heat load (mean) | ConvectivePersonHeatLoad-mean |
| Ideal cooling load (mean) | IdealCoolingLoad-mean |
These quantities are written automatically on an hourly basis when the option Generate default building-related outputs is enabled, see Outputs. In addition, there are templates for network quantities (pipes). Rooms without a data column in the result file remain colored gray.
Color scale
The expandable section Color scale controls the coloring:
- Color scale: selection list of the built-in color gradients — Default (Turbo), Viridis, Spectral, Plasma, Inferno, Magma, Cividis, Turbo, Coolwarm, Red-Blue, Red-Yellow-Blue, Seismic, Hot, Cool, Jet, Rainbow. The checkbox Invert reverses the scale (low values use the upper end of the palette). Via Edit…, a custom scale can be defined from color stops in the dialog Edit color scale (positions 0 to 1, color by double-click, Add color stop/Remove color stop); it appears as the entry Custom and applies to the current display — when saving into a view and reloading, only the built-in color scales are retained.
- Range: with Min and Max — value range to which the color scale is mapped. Values are normalized linearly; on manual entry, the program automatically corrects if Min ≥ Max.
- Hide when: with the fields < and > — objects whose value falls below the lower or above the upper threshold are made fully transparent. Empty fields deactivate the respective threshold.
Local min/max — sets the color range to the minimum/maximum of the currently set point in time. The button latches in: as long as it is active, the range is recalculated on every change of point in time.
Global min/max — sets the color range to the minimum/maximum of the entire time series. When loading a view, the global range is applied first and then replaced by the saved min/max values of the view, if present.
In the 3D scene, a semi-transparent color legend with the view name, scale and value range is displayed.
Good to know:
With the hide thresholds, critical rooms can be isolated quickly: for air temperature, for example, enter the value 26 under Hide when: < — only the rooms that are above 26 °C at the selected point in time remain visible. For hidden rooms, their windows also become transparent, opening up the view into the building interior.
Choosing a point in time (time slider)
At the bottom of the panel there is a time slider with markers at the output points (with closely spaced points, the markers are thinned out for readability). No interpolation is done between the output points; the value of the last reached output point is always shown. Controls:
- Slider over the entire simulation period
jump to the beginning, 
play/pause animation, 
jump to the end; the small slider next to it controls the animation speed- Date/time field (format
dd.MM. HH:mm, with calendar popup) and hour field (suffix h, 0 to 8759 h) for direct entry
The set point in time is saved as part of the view and shown in the table column Point in time.
Analysis: finding extreme values
The expandable section Analysis offers:
- Jump to time: with
to maximum value and 
to minimum value — sets the time slider to the point in time of the largest or smallest value of the entire time series (across all objects). - Find object: with
with maximum value and 
with minimum value — selects the object with the largest or smallest value at the currently set point in time, scrolls to it in the navigation tree and aligns the camera to the selection. - Current selection: — shows the name and value of the currently selected object at the set point in time. Without a selection, Nothing selected is shown, and for multiple selection Multiple objects selected; otherwise the value field carries the placeholder Object selection required.
Good to know:
The two analysis functions combined form the typical workflow for the overheating check: first switch to the hottest point in time of the year with Jump to time: to maximum value, then select the most critical room with Find object: with maximum value. For comparisons between points in time, Global min/max is recommended as the color range so that the colors remain consistent over time — Local min/max, by contrast, maximally spreads the color scale for the respective point in time.