Green Building Studio, Poject Solon and Insight 360

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

Is Insight 360 replacing GBS and Project Solon? 

Will the charts such as annual heating and cooling loads that used to be produced in GBS Revit link be brought over to Insight 360?

[c.renger]

Hi All,

I have the same question as Neil – could you please clarify? Many people seem to be interested in using the charts and according to Autodesk, upcoming releases of Insight 360 will have reporting features. What options do we have in the meantime?

I started working with GBS in Revit 2017 and am considering going back to Revit 2016, however I’d appreciate some feedback if Project Solon has been running smoothly in previous versions as I saw there were some issues, see e.g. http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/insight-360-energy-forum/project-solon/m-p/5569091/highlight/true#M128...). GBS seems much more comprehensive than Insight 360 and has many promising features that I'd like to use.

[Anonymous]

Hi c.renger,

If you reinstall Revit 2017 and leave it as is.  Don't install the 2017.1.1 upgrade and you will still have access to the GBS Results and Compare button as well as Insight 360 panel when you install the plugin.

This way you have access to all those great charts from GBS without sacrificing Insight 360.  The web version of GBS does not have the same amount of graphs that the Results and Compare has.

[c.renger]

Thanks for the tip Neil, I haven’t installed the 2017.1.1 upgrade. Results & Compare works now, but only after receiving 2 error messages. I’d like to use the Project Solon functionality in GBS with custom designed charts that should come up in Results and Compare. While this does not seem to be supported in v2017, v2016 should still have this function. However, I have tried with v2016 (R1) now and it still does not work. Have you or anyone worked with Project Solon? It looks like a really great feature for reporting – any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, CR

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately I don't know much about Project Solon.  I've played around with it a bit but couldn't get it to work properly.  I have a feeling that maybe Project Solon was what led to Insight 360.  Hopefully someone with more knowledge from Autodesk will clear this up here soon.

[c.renger]

Yes, however it doesn’t make sense to me to downgrade the functionality. The charts are really useful and I am also interested in using assessment methods in GBS beyond energy, e.g. water, carbon. I look forward to Autodesk's feedback and hope that all the great features will be retained.

[krishnan.gowri]

Insight energy optimization helps you make a better building with a few hundred simulations to explore design options.  In relation to Results & Compare and Project Solon, we would like to better understand your workflow.  What charts and graphs are you interested in creating to meet your client’s needs?  How do you use these charts and graphs?  What kinds of decisions are you able to make from those charts?

We would encourage you take a closer look at Insight and consider this against your goals and its purpose. We are now in the process of incorporating features from Project Solon into insight and would like to hear from you of features that you need.

[c.renger]

Hi Krishnan,

Thanks for your reply and great to hear that you are going to incorporate features from Project Solon into Insight 360. I am interested in using the charts as a visual tool in ESD reports and for education purposes, with the aim to respond to local climate and show the greatest resource savings potential. Since there are 3 tools with similar functions (Results & Compare, GBS, Insight 360), below is an outline of the functions I am interested in each of these:

Results & Compare / Project Solon

• All default charts in Results & Compare are useful
• It would also be great to custom design charts as per widget and dashboard creation in GBS/Project Solon. This would enable individually chosen graphics and parameter combination of climate data, time, resource usage, cost etc.
• Carbon neutral potential

Additional desirable functions from previous Autodesk software versions:

• Potential energy savings chart – compares multiple impacts in one graph
• Wind roses – the graphics are great, however it would be useful to customize the time as previously possible in Ecotect to show the impact on natural ventilation potential, e.g. cooling morning or afternoon breezes in hot climates (currently only wind speed & frequency available). On a related note, summer and winter are mixed up in Australia.

I would like to use the charts in my current reports for education buildings. As I understand the original Revit 2016 version would enable access to Project Solon, where can I download it? Results & Compare in the current v2017 (not 2017.1.1 upgrade) shows error messages before generating results (Cannot find path / problem with energy analysis service, cannot finish previously started runs). Is it possible to eliminate these?

GBS

• Annual electricity end use
• Water usage
• Carbon footprint / carbon neutral potential
• Natural ventilation potential
• Wind generation potential

Insight 360

• Energy measures are covered well, however GBS goes beyond energy
• Architecture 2030 Challenge link is great if international data available, waiting on extension to residential building type
• Solar Analysis – works in Revit but not in Insight 360 (error message: no selected panel types meet payback limits, see below). This has been the case in all my projects, is there a way to fix it?

Thanks for your interest in my feedback, I hope this is useful and would appreciate if you could shed some light on the questions above.

Regards,

Chris Renger

[Anonymous]

Has there been any further feedback on this topic? I would like to make use of some of the Project Solon and Green Building Studio functionality that is not present in Insight 360, as c.renger mentioned. Did Autodesk really remove functionality from Revit? Should I just stick with Trane Trace for energy modeling?