The Complete Environmental Design Tool

ECOTECT is a highly visual and interactive building design and analysis tool that links a comprehensive 3D modeller with the broad range of analysis functions that are required to truly understand how a building design will perform; solar, thermal, energy, lighting, acoustics, building regulations, resource use and cost aspects. Whilst its modelling and analysis capabilities can handle geometry of any size and complexity, its main advantage is a focus on feedback at the earliest stages of the building design process.

ECOTECT aims to provide designers with useful performance feedback both interactively and visually. Thus, in addition to standard graph and table-based reports, analysis results can be mapped over building surfaces or displayed directly within the spaces that generated them, giving the designer the best chance of understanding exactly how their building is performing.

In addition to the vast collection of internal calculations that ECOTECT can perform, it also exports to a range of more technical and focussed analysis engines, such as Radiance, EnergyPlus, ESP-r and others.

The recent addition of a comprehensive scripting engine that provides direct access to model geometry and calculation results has made performance based generative design and optimisation a very real option for the environmental engineer / designer who uses ECOTECT. Scripting allows models to be completely interactive and self-generative, automatically controlling and changing any number of parameters, materials, zone settings or even geometry during calculations or as the user specifies -- and at a more day-to-day level the scripting functions are excellent for automating the more mundane tasks involved in calculation runs, results comparison and report creation.

ECOTECT is unique within the building analysis industry, in that it is entirely designed and written by architects and intended mainly for use by architects -- although the software is also quickly gaining popularity with engineers, consultants, building designers, as well as owner-builders and environmental enthusiasts alike.

Modelling & visualization; includes its own interactive 3D modelling interface for creating, importing / exporting, checking and adjusting building geometry. Not limited by complexity or form, the interface also incorporates many useful features for viewing and analysing a design.

Image above left; an interactive OpenGL view of a model displaying shadows and sun penetration inside the building with the use of the automatic section cut feature (red “cut” lines). Above right; an image showing levels of insolation received on a complex 3D mesh form.

Shadows, shading & solar analysis; solar analysis is an important aspect of building design. Excessive solar exposure is a major causes of thermal and visual discomfort in buildings, even in colder climates. However, the sun is also the most effective source of natural energy (and the cheapest) which you have at your disposal. Being able to design with the sun, with certainty, is essential for any energy efficient building. There are a vast array of solar analysis and shading features in ECOTECT which will help you with every aspect of this process.

Images above; interactive shadows with numerous display functions. Top left; highlighting shadows from particular geometry is one example. Top right; a 3D sun-path with solar intensity overlayed -- allows for immediate understanding of when and from where solar exposure will be a problem or beneficial.

Lighting design; ECOTECT uses the BRE Daylight Factor method for daylighting calculation and the Point-to-Point method for electric lighting. For more detailed analysis and photorealistic rendering, it uses the Radiance Lighting Simulation engine from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories.

Image above left; a grid of light levels displayed within an interactive OpenGL view. Above right; an electric lighting simulation rendered from ECOTECT using the Radiance engine.

Thermal performance; ECOTECT uses the CIBSE Admittance Method to calculate heating and cooling loads for models with any number of zones or type of geometry. You can assign detailed material properties to all objects as well as operational schedules to occupancy, gains, filtration and equipment. For design validation it is also possible to use the EnergyPlus or HTB2 engines, as well as export to several others.

Image above left; an example comfort analysis showing mean radiant temperatures inside a small building. Above right; UK Part L compliance report automatically generated from an ECOTECT model.

Building regulations; As part of ongoing research into automated compliance testing for building regulations, the Right-to-light codes and Part-L from the UK are the first set to have been fully implemented in ECOTECT -- this includes easy to follow wizards to guide users step-by-step through the process. Work is currently underway to add support for LEED, the Australian BCA, the Italian building regulations and others.

Ventilation; The thermal analysis routines in ECOTECT do not require detailed air-flow and ventilation information. However to support ventilation analysis, ECOTECT can be used as a pre and post processor for external computational fluid-dynamics tools that fully consider air-flows.

Image above left; CFD results from a stadium analysis -- ECOTECT includes support for NIST FDS, a free fire and ventilation CFD engine from the US Government. Above right; a sectional view showing acoustic rays linked to a reflector -- excellent for ensuring that internal geometry is helping rather than hindering a room’s acoustics.

Acoustic analysis; there are a number of acoustic analysis options in ECOTECT -- these range from simple statistical reverberation times through to sophisticated particle analysis and ray tracing.

Resource use and costing; From the 3D model of a building, you essentially have a live spreadsheet from which you can extract area, volumes, distances for materials quantities and cost calculations. It is also possible to calculate energy and resource use (depending on equipment, occupancy and usage schedules) as well as power generation via solar collectors (photovoltaics).

Interactive help and documentation; To make learning and using the ECOTECT easier and faster, the release of v5.50 provides interactive help scripts to lead you through the process of finding the right page, panel, dialog or item to accomplish the specified task right within the actual ECOTECT interface. This same process can also be used for complex demonstrations, and anyone can use the same scripting language to create their own custom help, analysis processes or real-time demonstrations.

Demonstration copies of ECOTECT with full analysis functionality are available for free download via http://www.ecotect.com. The site also contains lots of information on energy efficient building design and free online CPD courses. If you have any specific questions regarding any of this please contact us.

Image of the ECOTECT v5.50 user interface with OpenGL visualisation displayed. Interactive OpenGL displays are combined with a vast range of analysis features -- the example above showing interactive sun positioning for viewing real-time shadows and sun penetration.

ECOTECT’s Main Features in Brief:

• Highly visual and interactive building design and analysis tool, covering the widest range of analysis features, including; solar, thermal, energy, lighting, acoustics, regulations, resource use and cost aspects.
• Fully interactive OpenGL model and integrated analysis visualisation.
• Interactively view shadows, sun penetration, reflections and more.
• Analyse the effects of overshadowing using; sun-path diagrams; shadow profiles for any date/time range; shadow highlighting, sorting and animation.
• Solar exposure calculations for optimising passive solar design techniques, photovoltaic collection and solar access rights.
• Natural and artificial light level calculations together with daylight factor and vertical sky component analysis.
• Hourly internal temperatures as well as the graphical analysis of thermal mass effects, fabric, ventilation and solar gains.
• Thermal and spatial comfort prediction throughout the year.
• Part-L compliance testing featuring full Elemental, Target U-Value, Whole Building and Carbon Emission methods.
• Prevailing wind data graphically displayed as part of a model.
• Full interactive acoustic design and analysis including; reverberation time calculations, sprayed acoustic rays and geometric ray-tracing.
• Construction cost analysis with ongoing running costs, greenhouse gas and embodied energy functions.
• Able to import / export over 40 popular CAD geometry formats.
• Export to a range of other focused analysis tools such as the RADIANCE Lighting Simulation Software for incredibly realistic radiosity-based lighting simulation as well as EnergyPlus, ESP-r and HTB2 for detailed thermal simulation and analysis.

ECOTECT v5.50 Latest Developments:

• Improved help file with interactive demonstrations and teaching packages, all of which are completely customisable, allowing anyone to create their own custom help, teaching packages, analysis runs or real-time demos.
• New tabbed window layout. The editing, visualisation and analysis functions are now fully integrated within the main application window to simplify and the working process. This allows quick access to all the editing functions, without having to leave the analysis page.
• Calculation wizards added to guide people step-by-step through the more complex analysis processes. For expert users these can be easily switched off, but for those who are unsure of what to do next they will provide the necessary reassurance by asking the right questions at the right time and ensure calculations are heading in the right direction.
• Full US Standard, SI Metric or custom units and localisation settings. The first building analysis software to implement a complete and fullycustomisable system for specifying units -- for both inputs and outputs.
• Host of new import / export formats and methods. With the generous support of Graphisoft R&D, we are very pleased to offer complete integration with their flagship product ArchiCAD. The implementation of gbXML (plus ongoing development of IFC 2x integration) provides for reliable compatibility with other analysis engines and CAD programs also.
• ECOTECT’s interface is being refined for use as a pre and post processor for the popular (and free) CFD analysis engine NIST FDS.
• As a result of many user requests we have implemented a straightforward but flexible system for recording and saving industry standard animation formats directly within ECOTECT. For more advanced users there is still of course the ability to create real-time "animations" that can include all aspects of the software's functionality via scripting.
• Research and development is always ongoing across the full range of building simulation, such as; interactive ventilation analysis and further building regulation compliance testing for countries around the world, including; US LEED, Australian BCA and many others.