How to utilize Enscape Impact for Building Performance Analysis
Despite the availability of resources for sustainable project design, early access to energy insights is crucial for architects to meet these goals. Introducing Enscape Impact, a new add-on that offers early-stage building performance simulation within the design workflow, allowing architects to evaluate the impact of design decisions on energy use from the start.
What is building performance analysis?
Building performance analysis (BPA) is a process used to evaluate and optimize a building’s efficiency, sustainability, and functionality throughout its lifecycle.
To make sure a building satisfies its operational and sustainability objectives, it entails evaluating a number of performance factors, such as energy usage, environmental effect, and system capacity.
Architects can begin to understand how their designs will affect energy use and building performance by including analysis early in the design process. This will result in more efficient and high-performing structures.
What is Enscape Impact?
Enscape Impact, developed in partnership with global climate tech company IES, is a brand-new add-on designed to seamlessly integrate real-time rendering with building performance metrics. It empowers you to optimize building performance and sustainability directly within your workflow to enhance your creative vision.
Enscape Impact provides fast energy modeling simulation for the early stages of design. You can now evaluate your creations’ sustainability much earlier in the design process and instantly calculate and compare key performance metrics, such as peak cooling and heating loads, as you design. It’s also possible to see the data manifested within the render, making it easier to comprehend and communicate the impact of design decisions.
Enscape Impact is fully compatible with major CAD and BIM software tools, such as Revit, SketchUp, Archicad, Rhino, and Vectorworks. The building energy modeling tool transforms architectural design by embedding energy analysis directly into the visualization process. Currently available for Windows.
How analysis is calculated in Enscape Impact
Enscape Impact collects essential data from your model, including layout, building age, location, and type. This data is then processed by the IES’s APACHE engine, one of the leading whole-building energy simulation tools.
The APACHE engine uses this high-level data to determine detailed thermal properties and systems suited to your building and its location. It factors in elements like building fabric, operational schedules, internal space conditions, typical internal loads, and the types of HVAC systems.
APACHE relies on various data sources, including weather data and ASHRAE standards (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers), to provide accurate estimates. For buildings outside the US or Europe, the tool compares them to structures in similar climate zones.
Lastly, APACHE conducts a dynamic thermal simulation, considering sun shading, solar gain, and heat transfer processes, resulting in a thorough estimation of energy usage for both the building and its equipment.
How to enter your building information into Enscape Impact
To enter your building project data into Enscape Impact, click on the ‘Settings’ tab. There are currently three required fields and one optional (more will be added in time):
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- Location
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The location and orientation should automatically be pulled from your design software if it is set up correctly there. If not, you can manually enter the location here.
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- Building Type
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Currently, there are 6 building types to choose from, but this will expand in time.
Select from Single Family, Multiple Family, Office, School or University, Hospital, or Dining.
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- Build Year
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For the build year, you can choose either the original construction date or a future date for planned construction.
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- Last Renovation
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This field is not mandatory, but if appropriate, you can add the date when the building was last renovated.
Click on the ‘Dashboard’ tab to start the analysis, which will take a short time to process.
Visualizing the metrics
Once the analysis is complete, several metrics will provide a quick snapshot of a building’s expected energy performance.
- Peak Loads: This represents the combined total of heating energy, cooling energy, internal gains, and solar gains, helping to determine the capacity needed for systems like HVAC.
- Total Carbon Emission: This shows the predicted annual carbon dioxide emission factors for the location.
- Energy Use Intensity (EUI): This metric measures a building’s energy consumption per unit area, with a lower EUI indicating greater energy efficiency.
- Energy End Use: This highlights the specific purposes for which energy is consumed within a building, helping to identify opportunities for energy savings through more efficient technologies or practices.
To visualize the building performance simulation on your model, click on the ‘Settings’ tab once again and toggle on ‘False Color’. You can then select each of the four outputs (Peak Loads, Heating Energy, Cooling Energy, and Solar Gains) to review them as a color scale distributed onto the entire building.
Your model will turn white, and colors will be applied to reflect the results of the data analysis. From here, you can demonstrate a building’s energy consumption to stakeholders or analyze and adjust your design further to improve its energy efficiency.
Why should you choose iRender for your render in Enscape?
iRender provides high-configuration dedicated servers (physical computers/machines) specifically optimized for GPU rendering. Using our service, you will have complete control over the server(s) you rent through the Remote Desktop application. In short, iRender’s server is like your computer in the cloud accessible on any device instantly. You will use its full power for everything.
We offer the most powerful RTX 4090 configuration packages on the market, all equipped with AMD RyzenTM ThreadripperTM PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz and AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 5975WX @ 3.6 – 4.5GHz processors, 256GB RAM and 2T NVMe SSD hard drive capacity. With a wide range of GPU servers (1/2/4/6/8x) – RTX 4090, you can choose the server that suits your needs to start the rendering process.
Also, iRender provides useful features to help you switch among the server’s configurations without having to reinstall anything. You can even run multiple servers simultaneously to speed up the renders, not having to re-install anything, either.
Let’s watch this video to understand our workflow more easily
Currently, iRender offers a special promotion for new users, a 100% bonus program for the first deposit within 24 hours of registration, making it an attractive option for those looking to optimize their rendering budget. Just register and get our best deal!
For more detailed information, please contact us via Live chat 24/7 or WhatsApp: +(84)915875500 or Email: [email protected]
References: enscape3d.com
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