The Building Description Language (BDL) is used to describe the structure to the simulation engine. The BDL is an intuitive language developed to describe buildings in terms of the operational and construction components.

The BDL processor sequentially checks each BDL instruction for proper form, syntax, and content. The BDL processor also checks for values that are beyond the expected range for the input variables and assigns a default value if one is not specified.

The BDL processor prepares the input data files for use by the Loads, Systems, Plant, or Economics (LSPE) simulators. Each of the LSPE simulators can run repeatedly, to study the effect of design variations. Superior energy-efficient building design can result in greatly reduced energy consumption and significantly lower life-cycle cost.

FTIDOE models are still built using the BDL rather than an Graphical User Interface (GUI).  This type of model description has been retained because of the incredible flexibilty of the BDL.  Years of experience have taught us that us that using the BDL opens up modeling to the limits of the engineers capabilites and not the GUI designers.  We do proivde an excellent context sensitive editor and extensive on-line documention to make this process as simple as typing a letter once you become familar with BDL.

Some examples of BDL input files are as follows:

• Simple Structure - Box with no windows or internal loads.  This is a progressive example that increase the complexity of the stucture in the same simulation run.  This is an excellent training example.
• Single Family Residence with attached sunspace.
• Small Bar/Lounge
• Medical Office Building
• 31 Story Office Building