Autodesk is set to unveil new conceptual energy analysis capabilities for subscription customers this week. The tools incorporate some of the building energy analysis tools previously available through Green Building Studio, directly within the Revit Architecture and Revit MEP 2011 workflow.
The new functionality responds to the growing global interest in green building, despite the economic downturn. A growing number of engineers and architects are involved in green projects, and government regulations are increasingly dictating a changed building approach, which indicates that these trends will only grow the demand for these tools and approaches.
With the energy analysis tools directly integrated with Revit, the time and speed of this analysis is greatly increased. Autodesk uses a cloud-based approach to handle the analysis off the desktop, doing the heavy crunching of the building’s parameters, and then returning results.
The new workflow incorporates Google Maps to provide the context of the building site, including topology, and proximity to transit options. There are also 1.5 million weather points to give the building designer inputs on energy demands in the location.
The integrated tools provide a means for the designer to contemplate both big-picture details as well as the fine-tuning on materials throughout the design process. At the outset different building footprints, number of floor levels, and building orientation can be considered along with the impact of weather on the design. As the design is refined, such things as types of materials, and power sources can be looked at. The tools provide details on energy use and cost per year, as well as the amount of carbon that the building will emit. View this video for a greater understanding of the project workflow.
These tools and analysis features provide documentation for energy efficiency standards such as LEED, and also provide a means to communicate different design alternatives to customers. The comparison of different alternatives in great detail will inform design decisions, and provide whole new approaches for design, engineering and owner collaborations.
In addition to this new desktop/cloud approach for energy efficient building design, Autodesk is also unveiling a new server capability for cooperative workflows. Revit Server Extension provides a means to coordinate large distributed teams with a combination of local and central servers. These new tools signify Autodesk’s focus on incorporating new computing approaches to speed work, and enable collaboration.
