As we noted in our AIA24 report just recently, IES and Chaos have formed a bit of a partnership wherein the latter is utilizing the former’s building performance engines. In this case, version 4.1 for Enscape delivers brand-new workflows focused on visualizing energy performance metrics and energy modeling.
Version 4.1
The latest version of the popular real-time rendering software brings real-time energy modeling capabilities to help architects in the earliest of design stages make impactful design decisions that affect building energy performance.
“Buildings are responsible for 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions, with 28% stemming from operational emissions — including the energy needed to heat, cool and power them — and the remaining 11% coming from materials and construction. This has profound implications for climate change and the future of our planet,” said Petr Mitev, VP product, solutions for designers at Chaos. “The future of sustainable design is changing, and better insights mean better buildings. Our customers will now be able to visualize the performance of a building while designing, with a focus on criteria such as energy usage, thermal comfort and daylight in real-time.”
Chaos’ Enscape 4.1 now features IES-powered real-time energy modeling and visualization, features we saw demoed at AIA24 and discussed in our detailed report here.
Architects and designers can instantly view the energy performance of their building and make insightful design changes to enhance performance. Powering this capability is the integration of IES’s core energy modeling engine into the Enscape workflow. IES is a global climate tech company and leading innovator in integrated performance-based building analysis.
Key Features New in 4.1
The key features new in version 4.1 of Enscape include:
- Real-time Energy Modeling: Effortlessly calculate and benchmark key performance metrics, such as peak loads & total carbon emission. See the data manifested within the render, making it easier to comprehend and communicate the impact of design decisions.
- Integrated Workflow: Perform analysis directly within the architectural workflow to inform sustainable designs early in the process. As with the core Enscape products, the add-on is integrated with Archicad, Revit, Vectorworks, SketchUp, and Rhino.
- Dials panel: Easy-to-read charts and diagrams intuitively display how geometry adjustments impact building performance. These comprehensive tooltips provide easy-to-understand guidance for beginners in building performance concepts.
Version 4.1 aims to help democratize building performance by bringing easy-to-use real-time energy modeling features into a popular, easy-to-use visualization platform that is leveraged across all the major BIM authoring solutions, as well as popular design modeling solutions from Rhino to SketchUp.
Now, architects and designers can get a head start understanding where their building designs fall in terms of energy modeling and can pass these results to engineers focused on MEP and building envelope systems expertise. This will aid in better alignment between the design phase work and the engineering phase work.
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“Previously, the design process was separated into architects using BIM for design, while engineers conducted performance analysis separately in software like IES offers,” said Ruth Kerrigan, chief operating officer, IES. “This led to duplicated visualization efforts and frequent misalignment between design intent and analytical models. Thus, the loop of recreating and aligning took long, and engineers’ reports were often too technical for clients and architects.”
Here is another view showing the types of numerical data in the results panel for the energy modeling integration. (Photo taken at AIA24).
To learn more about these IES-powered features, read our deeper report here, which also includes details about future directions for Enscape on AI and their “bridge” workflows to other Chaos software.
AI Enhancer
Enscape 4.1 isn’t just about energy modeling, however. This update features AI Enhancer a technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the visual appearance of people and vegetation in rendered images. The AI engine solution identifies the correct pixel selection, ensuring better results compared to other AI-generated images.
Enscape creates its visualization assets in-house, focusing on the efficient use of polygons to maximize rendering performance. This frees users to place multiple assets without performance loss. New artistic visual rendering modes, such as simulating pencil or watercolor drawings, were also introduced in Enscape 4.1. The new visual styles are available for screenshots, batch renders, and video animation exports. More features include:
- Colored shadows for artificial light sources: Colored glass and colored semi-transparent furniture now emit colored shadows when struck by artificial light or sunlight. Decoration objects will also leave a colored impression.
- Colored sun shadows update: Users can now add textures to the glass material (by uploading them), and the drop shadows will reflect those texture patterns. The fog setting has more accurate coloration at sunrise and sunset, meaning the distinctive orange hue is consistently represented, regardless of the quality setting used. In high and ultra settings, the fidelity of fog shadows is improved, and colored shadows interact with fog realistically.
- Integrated Graphics Native Renderer: Enscape 4.1 can be used on Windows computers with Intel and AMD CPUs (a separate, dedicated GPU is not needed).
- Chaos Cloud: Create virtual tours from panoramas and renders, customize hotspots, add highlights to guide users and showcase design options, assign floor plans, and enjoy tour navigation assistance with a minimap. Chaos Cloud is currently free to use, but users would need to transfer their content there, which requires a Chaos account login. A direct link for uploading exports directly to Chaos Cloud will be available with the Enscape 4.1.1 release.
Pricing and Availability
Between August and October 2024, all Enscape license holders will have access to the Enscape Impact Beta. The beta will also be included in the free Enscape trial. For more info go to Chaos.com and iesve.com