Daylight modeling software + Revit

[sec-k]

My boss has asked some of the engineers in our office and myself to research daylight modeling software options. We currently use AGI 32 which models daylighting and can calculation light levels, but it cannot calculate energy characteristics of daylighting. We also use Trane Trace, which can model the energy characteristics of daylighting, but not the light levels. We need one software that can do both plus provide daylighting renderings. He suggested to look at EQuest (which is a version of DOE2), IES and DAYSIM. I know nothing about daylighting analysis but need to look at how the software will interact with Revit MEP. Soooooo, does anyone have any opinions about the ones I Iisted or are there any others that you'd recommend? Pros and cons?

Thanks,
Jason

[Andrew.Bagnall]

IESVE does a great job of integrating daylight modelling into the energy simulation and will allow you to model the energy savings achieved by dimming your artificial lights in correllation with the daylight levels in the space.
However.. it would have to be THE most un-intuitive software to learn and training material is virtually non-existent. But after several years of painful trial and error, its really quite good actually! Good luck

[jeffh]

You could take a look at Ecotect Analysis and see if it offeres what you are looking for.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...&siteID=123112

[nubrun.188780]

It's funny that you ask that since Don McLean, founder of IES was just in our office yesterday demonstrating his new product. So after a discussion with him about his software and competing softwares this is my opion:

Ecotect is an option if you simply want a graphical representation. It will not provide the in depth analysis that IES will, but it also has a shorter learning curve then IES. This would be a good option if you are just trying to hatch things out with the architect.

IES possesses alot of good traits, which include an amazing daylight analysis, which can give demonstrate areas of glare as well as determining the lighting power at any point in the room. In addition to this like Andrew said you can also get an estimating savings of cutting artificial lighting and relying on daylighting. In addition to this you can have an integrated load software which can perform natural ventilation calculations, which as of now not alot of software will do. One thing that he Don did warn us about is that the support for waterside components, and package units is weak in the load software. This will supposedly be remedied in November of this year.

With that being said, if you can devote the resources to training someone to use IES, it is a much more robust software, but on the other hand you don't plan on delving in that deep, than ecotect will provide you with a great graphical representation.

[kyle.bernhardt]

Great conversation all. One solution that has not been raised yet is 3DS Max Design, which has a very advanced daylighting capability and good interoperability with Revit MEP. I've seen a number of customers very happy with this solution (especially since many firms already have a license for 3DS Max Design). You can read a beginner and advanced White Paper for more detail.

In short, you basically use Revit MEP as your modeler, defining the building geometry and placing lights (if doing combination Natural and Artificial lighting analysis), and then use FBX to transfer the data to 3DS Max, where the analysis takes place.

This is also a fundamentally similar workflow as the Revit MEP -> gbXML -> Ecotect Analysis/IES workflow previosuly discussed, although outputting a good gbXML file from the Revit model requires planning on the project from the get go (which is hopefully already being done to support energy needs).

To my knowledge (I could be wrong), IES is the only one that integrates the advanced daylight calcs into the energy/load calcs based upon a gbXML file from Revit. Ecotect Analysis get's you to Radiance/DAYSIM pretty easily, but it's connections to Green Building Studio and EnergyPlus for Energy Analysis do not integrate those daylight calc results.

If youre just looking for simple daylight calcs (not point-by-point), then there are a number of simpler solutions out there, but I'm assuming that's not the case.

Cheers,
Kyle B