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Tuesday 7 March 2017

Solar Study as Monthly Ranges

I recently came across a question a user posted on the Autodesk Community Forums (ACF), where the user wanted Revit to provide a solar study over a time range - Similar to what we could have done with Ecotect Analysis (The sale of Ecotect Analysis was discontinued in March 2015). I have to admit that I did not use or play around with Ecotect enough when it was available to us - I spent more time researching and using Autodesk Vasari (Another great program which was unfortunately discontinued)

There is a golden rule when it comes to BIM software: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should". We can definitely achieve a similar solar study result in Revit, but one has to carefully weigh the time spent to the actual benefits. Will the seconds/minutes/hours I spend be billable, or will it be seen as a value added service? I will leave the decision up to you. 

This Revit Recess entry will explain the steps taken to achieve a result as per the origional ACF post.

12-off 3D views were created, each with its Sun Path enabled. Each 3D view was set to a different month - starting with January and ending with December. 

A presentation sheet was created and each view placed on the sheet in the same position. (TIP: One can actually snap to the center of views which were placed on a sheet). As we can see from the image below, the sun paths create quite a "busy" view. 

By selecting 11 solar study 3D views and disabling the sun path, one will achieve a much neater representation. 

The end result does look great, though!

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