Synchronizing Thermal and Lighting Analysis in Performance-Based Design

Revit software and Green Building Studio web-based energy analysis service provide us with in-depth and overwhelming data in relation to building performance. Currently, however, organizing the data and decision-making is mostly a user responsibility. For example, although Revit software's full analysis provides us with lighting and thermal analysis, the results are not synchronized. To be more exact, the lighting part of the full analysis uses lighting power density (LPD), which is only related to the area and disregards other features such as window properties (even window size) or orientation, and so on. Using the Dynamo visual programming language extension and cloud-rendering services (illuminance calculation is currently a render operation) provided by Autodesk, Inc., it is possible to gather and organize illuminance values for the internal space. From there it is easy to calculate the internal lighting load, and accordingly it is possible to achieve a fully concerted thermal and lighting analysis, which is crucial in decision-making (especially in the design phase).