FormIt for Windows
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Solar + Energy Analysis
Start a BIM workflow by evaluating the performance of elements from the beginning of the design process.
Energy Analysis in FormIt
Analyze your building model for energy efficiency early in the design process.
Energy Analysis with Insight
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
What's New With FormIt + Insight
Improvements to Insight Reliability
- 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.
Getting Started
How It Works
- 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
Preparing Your FormIt Model
- 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
Starting Energy Analysis
- 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
Troubleshooting
Common Errors
- "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
Detailed Logs
- 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
Solar Analysis
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 1mo ago