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Solar Availability in Cities 15 May 2012 | 08:00 am
Dense urban environments provide a complex environment, where solar and daylight availability can become a scarce commodity, especially since buildings become increasingly taller. This is manly due to...
Comparing Solar Position Data 21 Jan 2011 | 03:44 pm
I have had a couple of occasions recently where I needed to directly compare different solar position algorithms, as well as predicted versus recorded position data. This sounds pretty simple, but the...
ECOTECT and the Average Energy Year 21 Jan 2010 | 05:04 pm
When you perform solar and thermal calculations in Ecotect, it does not do these for any specific year, but rather a standard 'average' energy year. This is true of nearly all thermal and energy analy...
Introducing Scripts in ECOTECT 25 Jan 2009 | 07:11 pm
Scripts have been available in ECOTECT from very early on in its development and are probably one of its most under-utilised features. Anyone can write and run a script in ECOTECT and they can be used...
Are Highly Efficient Buildings Sustainable? 1 Mar 2008 | 10:21 am
Many recent regulations and energy codes focus almost exclusively on energy efficiency during the operational life of a building. In our struggle to adapt to these changes and still appear 'modern', a...
Fitting a Spatial Analysis Grid 18 Feb 2008 | 05:23 am
Many people have questioned why the analysis grid produced by the 'Auto-Fit Grid' function in Ecotect leaves a gap around the edges of a room rather than covering the full extents of its floor area. T...
Averaging Solar Radiation 31 Jan 2008 | 09:51 pm
For the most part, the mathematics of solar radiation is pretty straightforward. However, there are a couple of situations that are less intuitive than they first appear. This is definitely true in th...
Why Do Shading Calculations Take so Long? 6 Dec 2007 | 11:54 pm
Calculating detailed solar shading and overshadowing is a problem for most building analysis tools, ECOTECT included. It is important to a whole range of building performance criteria, from thermal an...
Solar Shading Potential 14 Nov 2007 | 11:05 pm
Not all parts of a solar shading device are equally effective or even necessary. Techniques have been developed in ECOTECT to visually map variations in effectiveness over the actual geometry of a mod...
RADIANCE and Daylight Factors 23 Jul 2007 | 11:22 pm
The freely available RADIANCE software is one of only a few lighting analysis tools able to accurately calculate illuminance levels on surfaces within a building model. This article explains how illum...
