Optical Properties evaluation of alternative 3D materials for shading device systems.

Shading device systems are mainly constituted by bidimensional adjustable elements (louvres) or textile surfaces (roller blinds). A secondary external building skin realized by three-dimensional materials and structures are generally proposed as an alternative. Their effectiveness in reducing solar gains and improving indoor luminous comfort depends primarily on their geometry. In the first part of this paper we present some measurements of the angular solar and visible transmittance properties of an expanded metal mesh sample. In the second part of the paper, we assess a qualitative behavior of the product comparing its angular shading profile with the solar incidence angle distribution on a vertical plane, depending on latitude and orientation. A workflow to reconstruct a physically based digital model of the sample using different geometry reconstruction technologies, considering both three-dimensional modeling, 3D scanning and image reconstruction.