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comment BIM Companies Acquiring Energy Modeling Capabilities
Hevacomp software, used to predict energy loads and usage in buildings, will soon interface more closely with building information modeling tools from its new owner, Bentley Systems.
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Predicting how a building will perform before it is built is the tantalizing promise of building information modeling (BIM) design software. There are some fundamental differences, however, between an energy model and a model used to generate construction documents and three-dimensional views of a design, so the vision of real-time feedback on energy performance during design is not yet a reality. Two major BIM software companies, Autodesk and Bentley Systems, have taken a step toward fulfilling that vision in early 2008 by acquiring companies with energy modeling capabilities.
In January 2008 Bentley Systems announced that it had acquired Hevacomp, Ltd., a leading provider of mechanical-system load calculations and system sizing for engineers in the U.K. Hevacomp has recently expanded its capabilities to include carbon calculations and to provide energy-use simulations based on the EnergyPlus engine from the U.S. Department of Energy. “Our effective part is to make the interface very simple so that ordinary engineers can use it without special training,” said Tony Baxter, former managing director of Hevacomp and now Bentley’s director of product management for building services and energy analysis.
With Bentley as its owner, Hevacomp will now be moving actively into the U.S. and other markets, according to Baxter. Once modifications to address differences in climate and design approaches between the U.S. and U.K. markets are completed, Bentley and Hevacomp will offer Americans a user-friendly interface for the powerful EnergyPlus platform. (A promised EnergyPlus plug-in for Google SketchUp, when it is finally released, may serve this function for architectural elements but not for mechanical systems.)
Even as they work to integrate Hevacomp software into Bentley’s BIM tools, the companies have no intention of making the relationship exclusive. “We’re working on smart data connectivity,” noted Noah Eckhouse, Bentley’s director of business development, “but we have no desire to make it a closed system—we’re believers in interoperability.” Hevacomp’s energy-simulation software is available to users of its mechanical-design software for an additional £1,700 (about $3,300) per site (any number of users at one location).
At the November 2007 Greenbuild conference, Autodesk presented its vision of real-time performance feedback in a futuristic video of a design process. Working to realize that vision, in February 2008 it announced an agreement to purchase Green Building Studio. This Santa Rosa, California company pioneered the concept of energy modeling as a Web service, and its gbXML protocol is widely used to translate information from BIM software to energy-modeling tools. The Web service approach “represents a business model around analysis that you’ll see more of from Audodesk,” promises Jay Bhatt, vice president for AEC at Autodesk. Green Building Studio is especially effective for analyzing choices made early in the design process, but Autodesk plans to continue developing its partnership with IES, Ltd., for more sophisticated simulation capabilities, according to Bhatt.
At about the same time, Autodesk bought Carmel Software, a developer of mechanical-engineering software based in San Rafael, California. Carmel’s products include load calculations and system sizing for engineers as well some specialty tools, such as an indoor-pollutant-concentration calculator. In the past Carmel’s tools have been connected to Autodesk’s Revit software via gbXML. Now Autodesk is working to integrate that software with its design tools. Autodesk has not yet decided whether Carmel software will remain available for purchase independently, according to Bhatt, but Autodesk has taken it off the market for the time being. “It will be better featured inside the Audodesk platform than it ever could be on its own,” Bhatt said.
Bhatt noted that its integration of recently purchased stormwater-modeling software may serve as a model for its approach to the Carmel tools: the Intellisolve software that Autodesk bought in 2007 is no longer available as a separate product, but its capabilities are integrated into the just-released update of Revit Civil 3D. The company is also moving to provide lighting analysis with a new designer’s version of its 3ds Max film and videogame software. 3ds Max Design can be used to study both daylighting and electrical lighting in Revit models.
While gbXML and other protocols have streamlined the data flow from design software to modeling tools, there is no way to automatically transfer changes made on the analysis side back into the design model. Through these acquisitions, Bentley and Autodesk seek to leapfrog that need for data to complete a “round trip” from one tool to another: referring to the vision illustrated in its video, Bhatt notes that “there is no round trip in that concept—the analysis is happening simultaneously with the design.”
For more information:
Autodesk, Inc.
San Rafael, California
503-707-3872
noah.cole@autodesk.com
www.autodesk.com/green (For the future design concept video, click on the link to “Watch our latest research on sustainable design technology.”)
Bentley Systems, Inc.
Watertown, Connecticut
203-805-0432
www.bentley.com
This article was produced by BuildingGreen, Inc.- www.buildinggreen.com
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