3Dsolar

Detailed Product Specification

What is 3Dsolar?

3Dsolar is a geometry modeller for Rayfront, or more generally, a tool for creating "building models". It is intended to be used very early in the design process, in a stage where the use of a traditional CAD package would be difficult or even counterproductive. This program can be thought of as a sketching tool, that allows to model a building in an extremely simple way, while still offering enough flexibility so that the relevant parts can be included right away, and will show their effects in the simulations.

3Dsolar follows a fully parametric design paradigm. This means that you can start with the outline (the "bounding box") of your building, divide that into the floor levels, and then place rooms within each level for daylight analysis. If you later decide that your building should be a meter or two taller, just say so and all the subordinate elements will adapt to the new dimensions. This may sound too easy, but it is really surprising to see those very well though out functions in action, and to recognize how well they are adapted to the practical design process.

You can insert a predefined room from the library (which is of course editable) anywhere in your building, and all elements that were defined for that room will come with it. Typically this would be a window or two, an office desk, and one or several views. One of those views could represent the field of vision of a person working at that desk, ready for glare evaluations. Copy that room to another floor at the other end of the building, and you have a new view for the same simulations as required for this new location. And all this just with a few mouse clicks.

3Dsolar is currently available for the following operating systems on the x86 hardware platform.

• Windows95/98/Me
• WindowsNT/2000/XP
• Linux 2.2

3Dsolar is is the perfect tool to generate geometry input for the Rayfront lighting design toolkit.

Why buy 3Dsolar?

There are many reasons why you might consider this software. Let's just look at a few:

• Simple: Manipulate each part of the building directly in place.

• Practical: Developed by users for users

• Fast: Create a model of your building in almost no time.

• Specialized: Build the optimal model for your lighting simulations.

• Integrated: The easiest way to create the geometry data for your Rayfront simulation.

Features

3Dsolar offers many unique possibilities not found in other modelling software.

• The fully parametric building model garantees that no part of your building gets lost, and every part stays in the right position, even if you make changes to some of them later on.
• The systematic use of object libraries makes many tasks even simpler than they would already be. All library objects are of course freely editable.
• Library objects may even include other information, such as view points. If you place a working desk in an office space, it may bring a view point defining the field of vision of the person working there, ready for glare evaluations.
• Placing luminaires for electrical lighting happens like with any other element type within the hierarchical structure.
• In the same way, you can place sensor arrays for evaluating the illuminance or daylight factor distribution in your space.
• All of the above can be converted into a Rayfront project, and will continue to work in the expected way for all your simulations.

What is it Not?

3Dsolar is NOT a traditional CAD system!

If you need a tool to create your construction documents that can then be brought to the site to instruct the workers what to do, there are literally dozens of programs out there that can do this job. 3Dsolar is not one of them.

Where can I get it?

You can buy 3Dsolar right here! or get the Free Demo.