Solar + Energy Analysis
Start a BIM workflow by evaluating the performance of elements from the beginning of the design process.
Analyze your building model for energy efficiency early in the design process.
With a FormIt Pro subscription through the AEC Collection, you have access to Energy Analysis with Insight:
- Analyze early-stage design models with Green Building Studio's analysis engine
- Connect to a dashboard view of the analysis results to compare options for your design
- Adjust the Energy Analysis factor widgets, such as Window to Wall Ratio, Building Orientation, and others
- Summarize your building's energy impact with a single number calculated as a bottom-line cost per area
- Save your Energy Analysis results for future review with clients and other stakeholders
- FormIt 2021 now checks your model for common model issues before launching Insight runs, and fixes common Insight failures for a more reliable experience.
- FormIt 2021 also generally improves reliability of the FormIt + Insight connection, addressing many known failures and improving run success rates.
- Insight Energy Analysis uploads your FormIt model data, and runs several hundred analyses in the cloud to determine various energy scores
- Energy Analysis uses Revit to analyze your model, so just like when sending FormIt data to Revit, you'll need to ensure your FormIt model is watertight and manifold
- Insight will use any visible geometry in your FormIt sketch
- Ensure the building shell you want to analyze is the only visible geometry
- Put supporting geometry like entourage, furniture, and site elements on a separate Layer, and turn the Layer off
- Insight works best with a simple, solid building model
- If your building design already has openings for windows and doors, it's best to create a new mass with no openings specifically for Energy Analysis, and hide the more detailed version using Layers
- Look for the Energy Analysis button in the toolbar
- Click "Generate Insight" to start the process
- This will upload the visible model data, and will run several hundred simulations in the cloud
- When complete, a message will appear at the top of the screen, and the menu will update to indicate a new Insight is ready to view
- Click "View Insight" to view the analysis in your web browser
- "Insight project could not be created. Please try again later."
- If you're not able to log in, or if you see an "access denied" page, you may need to purchase a subscription to Green Building Studio
- To see if Green Building Studio successfully executed Energy Analysis runs for this project, take a look at the Green Building Studio dashboard
- Your latest project should appear at the top of the list, and should display 248 runs
- FormIt Web provides additional details when Energy Analysis fails:
- Open the model that's having issues with Energy Analysis
- Run Energy Analysis
- Open Developer Tools (hit F12 in either Google Chrome or Firefox)
- Look at the Console tab
With a FormIt Pro subscription through the AEC Collection, you can visualize the sun's impact on your building:
- Specify relevant faces to be analyzed for solar impact
- Visualize results in seconds within the app canvas
- Hover your mouse over an input point to see specific calculated values of solar impact
- Choose to view results as a monthly glazing study, or as a yearly solar panel feasibility study
Last modified 9mo ago