State-of-the-Art of Digital Tools Used by Architects for Solar Design

Abstract

This report presents a review of existing digital tools widely used today, as part of the Subtask B: Methods and Tools for Solar Design of the IEA SHC Task 41 "Solar Energy and Architecture". The review covers a total of 56 computer programs, classified according to three categories: 1) CAAD (computer-aided architectural design), 2) visualization, 3) simulation tools. The aim of this review is to analyse the current software landscape for building projects with a focus on early design phase (EDP). CAAD tools Until recently, building information modeling (BIM) software such as Autodesk Revit, Bentley Architecture, Graphisoft ArchiCAD, and Vectorworks Architect focused primarily on modeling and refining building geometry. Users relied on third-party software such as Green Building Studio, Ecotect, Hevacomp and IES VE to analyze the energy consumption of a building. A series of developments in the past few years (since 2008) changed that: there are many CAAD software today which include some form of connection to an energy simulation program thereby allowing passive solar gains preduction. Amongst the CAAD tools reviewed, the following BIM applications offer the most interesting possibilities for energy simulations including passive solar gains predictions: Allplan, ArchiCAD, DDS-CAD PV, MicroStation, Revit and Vectorworks. Google SketchUp, which is not a BIM application, also integrates many plugins: IES VE-Ware, OpenStudio, and Google SketchUp Demeter, which allow performing thermal simulations based on IES VE, EnergyPlus and Green Building Studio. Google SketchUp is widely recognized for being used at EDP and is often used in the architect's workflow as a predecessor software to another more complex BIM or non-BIM applications (e.g. AutoCAD). None of the other CAAD software examined in this review allow passive solar gains prediction, either at EDP or at detailed design phase. Note that AutoCAD models (.dwg) can be exported to Ecotect or to other simulation software since the .dwg format is a widely accepted file format. A plugin called EnergyPlugged plugin is also available in beta version for running EnergyPlus from AutoCAD. Note however that AutoCAD is more suited for the detailed design phase. Apart from perhaps ArchiCAD and Google SketchUp, which are convivial for EDP work, all the programs reviewed are more suited for detailed design than EDP. For EDP work, it is crucial for the architect to feel s/he has a "free" hand, i.e. having the capacity to easily modify a building's overall volume, geometry and orientation. The changes made on these parameters (volume, geometry, orientation) should be connected to a direct, explicit feedback about passive solar gains. This review outlines the fact that this type of direct explicit feedback is still lacking in many CAAD-BIM programs but that the recent advances in this field are promising. IEA SHC Task 41-Solar Energy and Architecture T.41.B.1: State-of-the-art of digital tools used by architects for solar design 10 SAT: ACIS (.sat), the 3D ACIS Modeler (ACIS) is 3D ...

State-of-the-art review of solar design tools and methods for assessing daylighting and solar potential for building-integrated photovoltaics

“…However, with the enormous increase in the available computational power since then and further improvements and optimisation of the original method [101] [102], the additional computational expense of a full spectral simulation in comparison with an RGB model is almost negligible. As also noted in [17] spectral rendering is a promising development for future study of special coating and/or glazing materials widely used in solar architecture. Therefore, it can be concluded that the spectral rendering has become a reasonable and necessary step forward in visualisation, daylighting and BIPV simulation.…”

“…On the other hand, the majority of the visualization tools almost completely abandoned quantitative aspects of the simulations including daylighting and put a focus only on a visualisation part. Yet, according to trends, majority of tools that aim for physically based approach would sooner or later strive to unite artistic and scientific needs into versatile crossindustry packages, as it has already happened in automotive and aerospace industries and their cutting edge software like SPEOS, VRED etc.. Dubois and Horvat [17] also recognized that this is certainly an area which needs much development in the future. It is just a question of time before this approach becomes common in architecture/building industry.…”

“…Finally, the most related state-of-the-art review is carried out within the IEA SHC Task 41 -Solar Energy and Architecture [17] [18] [19]. It was definitely the most comprehensive review done so far, with extensive descriptions for many software tools regarding solar architectural design that includes daylighting, visualisation, BIPV and 3D modelling tools.…”

Energy simulation tools and CAD interoperability: A critical review

“…The target audience is architects. The tool's major strengths are its visual appearance and suitability for early design stages (refer Fig.6) [9].…”

“…The program therefore only requires a minimum of input data in order to perform initial sun shading studies and preliminary assessments as shown in Fig.7. As the design process continues, the amount of data input into the model can be increased, allowing acoustic and thermal simulations and resource modeling [9].…”