Plug-in within Revit Architecture provides direct link to IES Software.

Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited announced that it has developed a free plug-in to Autodesk’s Revit Architecture which provides a direct link to its software and to the company’s new architect-orientated Toolkits. The Toolkits are designed to allow architects to undertake top-level building simulation analysis, facilitating sustainable design at the click of a few buttons.

This new development enables architects to investigate the building’s performance at early stages in the design process without any specialist simulation knowledge or the need to re-input geometry data, and without leaving the Revit environment. It allows the Revit Architecture BIM model to be easily and quickly imported into IES’s unique system of integrated building performance analysis tools.

By clicking the IES toolbar in Revit Architecture, the BIM model is transferred into the IES software and a dialogue automatically opens. This displays the imported model and provides an easy-to-use method of assigning basic construction and room type properties to the building and rooms as required.

Within Revit Architecture, the main Toolkit, the Sustainability Toolkit, provide four analysis options: heating and cooling load calculations, annual dynamic thermal simulation for energy consumption, sun view animation for winter, summer and midseason, and a daylighting assessment. The Toolkits automatically run the chosen analysis through the IES suite of building performance software and generate an html report of relevant information quickly and easily.

Analysis of a building’s performance at the early concept stages of the design process allows architects to make informed decisions about orientation, layout, form and construction. Furthermore, generating such high quality building performance information at the early stage of the design process makes it easier to design sustainable, low energy buildings.