Building Energy Simulation: Showcase with Ladybug & Honeybee

Master Rhino interface basics for energy analysis with Ladybug and Honeybee, covering coordinates, viewports, and the command panel. Discover layers, properties, snapping, gumball, and basic view styles.

Learn to create basic shapes in Rhino in millimeters, from 2d curves to 3d surfaces, using loft, extrude, patch, and sweep. Explore selection modes and control points for modeling.

Master boolean operations in Rhino to intersect, union, and subtract objects, then use clipping planes, split, trim, and join to create and refine three-dimensional models.

Explore the grasshopper interface, a rhino plugin, and learn its parametric workflow with inputs and outputs to create circles and rectangles. Bake geometry into rhino and manage previews.

Explore the core data types in Grasshopper—text panels, numbers (integers and floats), and booleans—through hands-on examples with panels, number sliders, and a larger than test.

Link Rhino and Grasshopper data by transferring points and curves between applications, using set one point and set multiple curves, and create surfaces with the loft command.

Explore Grasshopper curves data type, creating primitive curves, splines, nurbs curves, and polylines. Analyze and modify curves with midpoint, endpoints, length, evaluate curve, divide curve, explode, join, offset.

Master surface creation in grasshopper by using loft, boundary surface, extrude, sweep, and pipe; analyze b-rep edges, naked edges, deconstruct, cap holes, and compute volume and area for parametric forms.

Explore the intersection tab in Grasshopper to compute intersection points between lines, planes, curves, and meshes, create fragments from splits, and apply boolean operations like difference, union, and intersection.

Explore the mesh tab in gh, contrasting meshes built from triangles with smooth mathematical surfaces, and see how mesh edges reveal roughness that higher radius highlights.

Master Grasshopper lists, data trees, and data logic to organize parameters; apply reverse, split, shift, and list item actions to create and manage points and lines for parametric workflows.

Explore data trees in Grasshopper by moving from basic lists to nested structures, visualizing branches and leaves, and applying flatten, graft, simplify, and path operations.

Divide data with true/false patterns, cull indices, and patterns for selective reduction in energy simulation datasets. Apply these extra list operations in upcoming practical examples.

Explore Grasshopper's attractor point by building a square grid of points, linking a Rhino point, and using distance-based remapping to vary circle radii and extrude geometry.

Install Ladybug tools and Honeybee tools as Grasshopper plugins for Rhino from Food for Rhino, then restart to access tabs like gradients, Honeybee Radiance, Dragonfly, and Ladybug.

Explore the ladybug and honeybee tools for climate analysis and energy modeling. Learn to import EPW weather data, analyze and visualize results, and link data to Grasshopper for building simulations.

Visualize Ladybug data with hourly plots of dry bulb temperature, sun path, and wind rose to interpret city climate and inform design decisions in Grasshopper and Rhino.

Visualize skydome radiation with a cumulative sky matrix using location, direct and diffused radiation from EPW data, and use radiance software to assess solar gain and panel orientation.

Integrate sun hours and radiation with geometry to visualize direct sun exposure using sun path vectors and a 5-meter analysis grid. Compare single-day and monthly results to assess shading.

Perform a radiation gain analysis using a sky matrix and sun vectors to map kilowatt hour solar gain by month and facade, informing solar panel placement.

Explore UTCI comfort analysis to translate air temperature, MRT, humidity, and wind into human thermal perception, visualize comfort hours, and identify ideal shading and ventilation strategies.

Review Ladybug tools for weather and environmental analysis, including sun path, wind rose, and radiation, and link analysis to building geometry to assess sun hours and comfort.

Learn how Honeybee builds an energy model from Rhino geometry and runs simulations with a weather file to analyze cooling, heating, lighting, and solar gain.

Analyze interior comfort with honeybee tools inside your energy model using the single family comfort study script in Grasshopper, to chart room by room comfort hours and interior surface temperatures.

Convert normal Rhino geometry into honeybee geometry using an object-by-object workflow in the honeybee tab, defining faces, apertures, rooms, and shading for energy simulations.

Convert Rhino solids to honeybee rooms via intersect solids and room from solid, creating named rooms. Add openings and shading; assign walls and roofs for energy and comfort simulations.

Create honeybee objects from Rhino geometry by grouping spaces like offices, study rooms, and classrooms into rooms, then automate openings with apertures by ratio and louver shade for energy simulations.

Explore the honeybee workflow for energy analysis: configure constructions and insulation, set schedules and loads with building programs, specify the hvac system, then run the simulation for accurate results.

Explore Honeybee energy construction sets by climate and 2019 standards, deconstruct to reveal exterior walls, roofs, windows, and customize materials and constructions for your model.

Identify building schedules using honeybee library templates, map hourly functioning from 0 to 1 across weekly patterns, and apply constant, seasonal, and weekly schedules to energy analysis.

Learn to use and customize building programs in the Honeybee library, deconstructing room loads and set point, then create your own programs for precise energy simulations.

Explore a real-world energy simulation workflow for an architectural firm in Jakarta, using Rhino, Grasshopper, and Ladybug to model energy, run analyses, and optimize toward an EPC A rating.

From a Jakarta client brief, this lecture builds energy simulations and architectural optimization—thermal, flow and radiance analyses inform insulation, roof, HVAC, and renewable energy choices using EPW data.

Deliver a building performance analysis report detailing weather, heat, roof and ceiling design, ventilation, energy model comparisons, materials, glazing, lighting, rain catchment, solar panels, and EPC a-class outcomes.

Export the Revit model as a dwg file and import it into Rhino to build the energy model geometry, converting millimeters to meters for accurate analysis.

Learn how to create room volumes in Rhino using the solids-to-rooms workflow, converting walls into shared-box rooms with Grasshopper and bounding boxes for Honeybee energy modeling.

Create single-faced room solids in Rhino and Grasshopper for honeybee by aligning and thickening walls, moving faces, and using boolean difference to form clean room volumes for energy modeling.

Transform ten solids into honeybee rooms, group them, and assign main space, bedrooms, and others; then visualize and solve adjacencies to define walls, floors, and roofs.

Identify honeybee openings by extracting naked edges from wall surfaces, isolating window boundaries and the main door, and using add surface to assign apertures to exterior walls.

Model the roof by extruding the top surface into a Honeybee room, then enable an air boundary to compare ceilings and no ceilings for energy simulations.

Identify and create outdoor shade geometry in grasshopper, convert surfaces into honeybee shade geometry, and prepare the building for energy simulation by visualizing and integrating shaded surfaces.

Identify the building as a residential mid-rise apartment and assign room programs for the living area, bedrooms, and corridors using Honeybee energy's building program and the item selector.

Create and customize construction sets in Honeybee energy, assigning materials to walls, roofs, and floors. Build custom layers with insulation and gypsum, then link to rooms for energy analysis.

Configure a residential AC with no heat, assign rooms, set cooling to 24, heating to 18, and dehumidification to 70%, link to the model, and prepare setpoints for energy simulation.

Run an energy analysis with the Honeybee template, using Jakarta epw data, to visualize cooling, lighting, and hot water demands and compare roof configurations with and without a ceiling.

Run a comfort analysis with Ladybug Tools to evaluate interior comfort and surface temperatures, incorporating the comfort matrix, exterior temperature, clothing factor, and periodic mean vote, with room-by-room visualizations.

Use a comfort mapping analysis with a pre-made recipe, create a 0.5 m grid from rooms, link EPW and DDP, and run a one-day period to find hot zones.