Introduction.

The current energy efficiency addin tool for Revit is called Autodesk Insight. It has a couple of tools to measure different energy efficiency ideas. I’ll be looking at doing a Day lighting analysis in this blog.

Installation

First step is to download the Insight Revit add in. The addin can be downloaded by visiting the main Insight website: https://www.autodesk.com/products/insight/overview

Then select the Download tab.

In the download tab you can then download the appropriate addin version. In this case we downloaded the Revit 2020 addin.

Once downloaded install the add in. Just make sure Revit is closed when installing.

Once installed you can open Revit and when going to the Analyze Tab you’ll see the Insight panel.

Model Preparation.

In order to do a day lighting analysis you need to make sure the ‘sun’ is in the correct position. To do so you need to first locate your project in the world and then orientate your project in relation to North.

Location.

To locate your project, select the Manage Tab and Location as shown.

A dialogue box will appear in which you can add the Project address. Add your address. In this case I used the standard one for this project which is Boston in the USA.

Then make sure that the sun orientation is set up on your project. To do this go to the project’s Site View. In the View Properties set the Orientation Parameter to True North.

Once set go to the Manage Tab and select Rotate True North tool as shown.

Add the angle that the Project North and True North differ. In this case its 37 degrees.

Once this is set the Project is set so that North is pointing upward and that allows the sun to be in the correct orientation.

Day lighting

Go to the Analyze Tab and the select the Lighting tool. Then in the next dialogue box click Go.

This will open the Lighting Analysis in the Cloud dialogue box. It might do a license checking first to see if you have access to this service. Insight Cloud service is part of the Autodesk AEC collection Subscription.

More on the AEC collection please visit: https://www.mgfx.co.za/cad-software/autodesk-aec-collection/

The next dialogue box will allow you to select a analysis to run and time to use. I left all default and selected Start.

You’ll receive a confirmation that the Model is busy uploading.

Once processed you’ll be presented by the report which you can then accept.

You can then save the Project.

Visualisation

Now go to one of the plans and select the Lighting tool again. Select the drop down and pick Generate Results. Select Go.

This will generate plans and a 3D of the results. Select the Lighting plan. You’ll see a visualisation of the lighting lux levels. Note you can move the lux level legend.

In the 3D view I used a section box to remove the roof to reveal the floor visualisation.

Also note you can select the visualisation object and in the Properties set the time and/or averages.

You can also Edit the Style of the visualisation. Select the visualisation object and then select Edit Style in the ribbon. You can set the Style or edit the colour of the visualisation.

You can also change the style.

Conclusion

Using this tool assist the designer to very quickly visualise and see the effect of the sun at various times and the effects of their window positions, for example.