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DOE-2 / eQUEST BDL Building Input.

At a glance
Purpose A DOE-2 or eQUEST building description in the Building Description Language (BDL). Many unrelated tools, among them Abaqus and LS-DYNA, also use .inp.
Extensions .inp
Poka parser poka-inp
Viewer poka-tree-viewer
Depth tier Parser with a shared viewer (see Depth tiers)
Breadth tier B2 Broad (see Breadth tiers)

How much Poka reads

B2 Broad. The common content of the current and the common older versions is decoded. Some named features or versions are not, and are listed.

Confidence: medium (the reviewer read the code). Basis: Reviewed 2026-10-16: poka-inp lib.rs, main.rs, tests/samples.rs, tests/geometry.rs; poka-bdl-common geometry.rs and lib.rs. Corpus: 2 DOE-2/eQUEST BDL files (Sandia office, Spanish cubo) and 3 Abaqus-style decks. Covers BDL generically; no DOE-2.1E, 2.2 or 2.3 differences are handled or tested.

What Poka does not read

  • Shading objects (building shades, fixed shades, overhangs, fins) are not drawn in 3D
  • Schedules, constructions and HVAC systems are listed as raw keyword rows, not interpreted (no schedule profiles, no HVAC topology)
  • Listing caps: 300 objects per group and 40 keywords per object; larger models are truncated
  • Openings in BOTTOM floors and objects with no usable placement are not drawn
  • No evidence of macro, expression or conditional BDL handling
  • Abaqus decks get a summary tree only (node and element counts, steps, loads); LS-DYNA and other .inp decks are not read
  • Only two real DOE-2 files in the corpus

Background

DOE-2 is a building energy simulation program; its site offers DOE-2.1E, 2.2 and 2.3, and eQUEST is built on DOE-2.2. Poka reads the BDL form as a building: "name" = COMMAND objects ending with two dots. It turns the flat list into the building (floors hold spaces, spaces hold walls, walls hold windows), shows the constructions, schedules and HVAC as a library, and draws the placed surfaces in 3D. Abaqus and CalculiX keyword decks get a summary tree instead of a building; LS-DYNA decks are not detected specifically.

Versions

Version Identifier Poka Note
DOE-2 / eQUEST BDL input Read
Abaqus, LS-DYNA and other .inp decks Partly read Abaqus and CalculiX keyword decks get a summary tree (counts, steps, loads), not a model; LS-DYNA is not detected specifically.

Libraries

Libraries Poka uses or has assessed for this format, with the status, licence and language the registry records.

Software that uses it

  • Dassault Systèmes Abaqus
  • eQUEST / DOE-2

Sources