Daylight and shadows Analysis presentation ?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

In a lecture today we had Autocad 2010 demonstrated to us, in particular Ecotect. I obviously use ArchiCAD and have just installed EcoDesigner, but since I'm new I'm not sure how AchiCAD compares to autocad in terms of what presentation material can be made.

For example, the below images ( not my images ) show a sun study, which I know ArchiCAD does but not sure if it has the sun dial (?) over the model. You can also have Ecotect create thermal imaging of the building and various other things like shadows.

I would like to know what things ArchiCAD can do i.e can it do all of the below and more ? ( screen shots would be greatly appreciated ! )

Thank You

[Anonymous]

And here's the thermal imaging.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Ecotect has many many more features.
EcoDesigner and Ecotect are not in the same league.
But GS has made this very clear from the beginning when marketing EcoDesigner.

[Anonymous]

laszlonagy wrote:
Ecotect has many many more features.
EcoDesigner and Ecotect are not in the same league.
But GS has made this very clear from the beginning when marketing EcoDesigner.

I see. I don't suppose there are any add ons to extends the use of Ecotect, or at least have more presentation material on Eco analysis.

Thank You

P.S D you think more feature will be added in Archicad 14 ?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Are you asking about Ecotect or Ecodesigner?
I guess Ecodesigner.
But AC and EcoDesigner are separate products, their release cycles are not necessarily linked, I believe.

[Anonymous]

Yes Ecodesigner...

I think one think that AC and Ecodesigner offers is the carbon footprint and running costs of a building with is extremely intelligent, not sure if Ecotect does that.

[Anonymous]

I've had a look at my brief, and it require more than I anticipated including;

Showing solar, thermal and acoustic strategies showing passive solar design, passive ventilation, thermal conservation, soundproofing and weatherproofing mechanisms...

Can ArchiCAD do any of these ?

I know it's a little vague but if it can't I will need to learn AuoCAD

[David Larrew]

The answer is yes and no...

ArchiCAD being a true BIM application, has the ability to store and calculate information such as R-values, material specs., sizing, energy efficiencies and coefficients, etc... But ArchiCAD doesn't come out of the box ready to work within this realm. GS does offer EcoDesigner, but it is not the same as something like EcoTect or other analysis applications.

ArchiCAD was not developed to do the heavy analysis that those other applications do, and is not built to do the specialized analysis graphics and diagrams that you are showing.

You can use ArchiCAD to do the modeling of your structure and then you can export the model to your analysis program. IFC file format can be used to transfer the model information between applications.

You can also use ArchiCAD to describe your design with 3D renderings, 3D/2D Sun Studies, and 3D Documents then use your analysis application to do the calculations and diagrams.

[Brett Brown]

I was under the impression you could export the model using gbXML to use in Ecotect. Is this not correct?

[David Larrew]

You used to be able to save out to GreenBuildingStudio (gbXML) before Autodesk swallowed them up. I don't know if there is a new "free" add-on to export the gbXML format available for the latest ArchiCAD.

And now that EcoTect is under the Autodesk umbrella, I don't know how "open" the code to import-export is going to be for us non-Autodesk people.