Emma Stewart is the Head of Sustainability Solutions at Autodesk. A number of people on her team have contributed to this blog in the past few months. She has also been quite a prolific writer and has been published in a number of newspapers and journals. We thought it would be interesting to the readers of this blog to get a short bibliography of her work. We think you will find some of these articles quite insightful. Continue reading

Affected programs: Autodesk ® Simulation Moldflow ® Adviser and Autodesk ® Simulation Moldflow ® Synergy Explanation: Users may receive the above message from Windows User Access Control (UAC) when they try to start Autodesk ® Moldflow ® Adviser 2014 or Autodesk ® Moldflow® Synergy 2014 on Windows 7. This happens... Continue reading

We’re excited to announce the new Potential Energy Savings chart. We’ve built it to help design teams understand the features of a building’s design, construction, and systems that can save the most energy. It is designed to helpful focus the team’s valuable efforts only on the areas that matter most for reducing energy use. Continue reading

The Call for Proposals for AU 2013 closes in 5 days. Don't miss this chance to share your knowledge at Autodesk University 2013. SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL NOW Now is the time to start preparing your class proposals. Think about what you can share with others and about new and emerging... Continue reading

Participation in the Autodesk Discussion Groups and Forums for Autodesk BPA tools is a great way for you to contact our BPA team with your questions and comments. We regularly respond to forum topics, and we encourage you to also share your knowledge with your peers, and contribute to discussions. You'll find our communities at the Autodesk Vasari Discussion Forum, Autodesk Revit Architecture Discussion Group, Autodesk Revit MEP Discussion Group, and Autodesk Green Building Studio Discussion Group Continue reading

By 2050, the world’s rapidly growing population is predicted to reach 9 billion. Already pushing the limits of our planet, the implications are staggering. At Autodesk, important work is being done to fully understand and address the epic challenges that 9 billion people present. Yet there is still much to do. On April 30, Autodesk launched its fifth sustainability report – “Sustainability in Action”. More than a snapshot of our progress over the past year, the report is a declaration of Autodesk’s commitment to helping people imagine, design and create a better world in which 9 billion people can thrive.... Continue reading

We invite you to join us on Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 from 11:30-12:30am EDT when Autodesk's Marjorie Stein - Product Manager, Building Performance Analysis, discusses default inputs used for energy analysis and on what these inputs are based. Attend and learn about our cloud analysis service Green Building Studio and their rich and extensive database of intelligent defaults for building constructions, schedules, internal loads, HVAC equipment, and other inputs needed for the energy and carbon analysis. Learning Objectives: 1. After this session, participants will understand that inputs are primarily based on Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) characteristics, and standard... Continue reading

Lachmi Khemlani has written a very comprehensive article in AECbytes about Autodesk's 2014 Building Design Suite. Most of it is dedicated to Revit including coverage of the new Energy Analysis capabilities. For more detailed information on those features take a look at our previous blog on the topic: Revit 2014 - New Features Revit 2014 Now Available for Download – Energy Analysis using Revit Building elements Related articles March 26 Autodesk webcast Daylighting as a Service Quantitative Analysis of Daylighting and Lighting directly from Revit Continue reading

In celebration of Earth Week (April 22-26) I thought readers may be interested in this contenst: Instructables Green Design Contest - Contestants submit Instructables that use greener materials, consume minimal energy, and take into consideration the product's end-of-life. Enter to win over $1000 in prizes. More info and entry instructions at Instructables Continue reading

Recently we wrote about the hidden ‘illuminance’ setting available through the Autodesk 360 Rendering web portal. Since January this year, this little known feature has been available through a somewhat hidden dialog on the Render Gallery for any 3d view rendered from Revit 2012+, Vasari or AutoCAD 2013+. A couple of weeks ago, the Rendering team deployed an update that exposed the illuminance rendering request directly in the Render in Cloud dialog in Revit 2013 and later as well as Vasari. Now you can create daylighting and artificial lighting illuminance renderings at industry standard quality and accuracy in a fraction... Continue reading

Did you know that Autodesk 360 Rendering allows you to create daylighting and electric lighting illuminance renderings just like other industry-standard daylighting analysis tools like Radiance/DIVA, Autodesk 3ds Max, and IES-VE, but in a fraction of the time, and without interrupting your current Revit workflow? Continue reading

For Architects, Engineers, and other building professionals performing energy analyses who want to understand the relationship between Vasari, Revit, and Green Building Studio, and get an overview of the Green Building Studio features. Continue reading

Just a quick update that the Vasari Talk about Green Building Studio's Green Button feature is now available for viewing. You can find the details, recording and relevant links in our blog post announcing the Vasari Talk session. Continue reading

The newest version of FormIt was released last night on the Apple App Store. Congratulations to the FormIt team that has been cranking out releases on a regular bases. You can find more info about the release on the FormIt announcement site. One of the interesting new features enables you to build out the 3D model faster by using an image as an underlay. As we mentioned in a previous post, you can then use the FormIt model to perform Building Performance Analysis through the automatically generated Revit model that shows up in your A360 account. There is also a... Continue reading

A few weeks ago we shared with everyone the Building Performance Analysis features of the upcoming Revit 2014. We wanted to share with you some more information about the other new and exciting features in Revit 2014. There is a very detailed writeup by David Light about all the new features. Also the video below will give you a demo of the new features: Check them out and tell us what you think. We are always interested in your thoughts and comments. Continue reading

Who is this for? Anyone interested in learning about the user centered design process behind our Building Performance Analysis products. Takeaway: Personas are an effective tool for ensuring a product meets the needs of its users. Author: Julie Lucas - Principal Interaction Designer, Building Performance Analysis, Autodesk, Inc. One of the most important lessons a software designer can learn is that “you are not your user”. This is because users do not think like a designer would. Designers know their product inside and out, they’ve used it through multiple iterations, and know the background of every design decision that was... Continue reading

(Updated April 9 2013 with Vasari Talk video and link to Vasari Talk site) Vasari Talk is back with some in-depth sessions around energy simulation. Please join us on Wednesday, April 3, 2013 from 11:30-12:30am eastern when David Scheer, Autodesk Building Energy Engineer, will talk about the new Green Button feature in Green Building Studio. This feature is designed to help users automate and streamline the process of synchronizing utility data and historical weather data which in the past has been a very manual and labor extensive process. David will show us a case study of the Autodesk Office in... Continue reading

This post discribes how to use Autodesk Vasari for numerous types of Building Performance Analysis (BPA) including Energy Analysis, Solar Radiation, Sun Studies, Wind Tunnel (exterior airflow) and a few others. Note that some of these features are also available for Revit. Continue reading

Today sees the global launch of Revit 2014 and the BPA team is very pleased to inform you that it contains some exciting new capabilities for Building Performance Analysis Continue reading

Join us tomorrow, March 26, at 8am Pacific (11am ET, 3pm UK, 4pm EMEA) on Facebook to learn about Autodesk’s portfolio of new design tools or also at www.livestream.com/autodesk Shortly after you have seen the presentation, we would like to invite you back to this blog for some more detailed information. Related articles Special Autodesk Live Events and You Are Invited Continue reading

Who this is for: Revit Users looking for add-ins that help with MEP design and Building Performance Analysis Takeaway: There are a number of free and trial add-ins on Autodesk Exchange Apps site that can help you with your building mechanical work and BPA. By: Emile Kfouri I was just trolling through the Autodesk Exchange Apps site and noticed a number of very interesting Revit add-ins that may be of interest to Mechanical designers and BPA professionals. Take a look at the list of Revit add-ins under "Building Performance Analysis", "Mechanical Design" and "Electrical Design". Have you used any of... Continue reading

It is quite gratifying to be recognized for the commitment that Autodesk has to sustainability. Autodesk moved from 86th in last year's ranking to 18th. Look out Levi Strauss! You can get the full list of companies at SMI site. Continue reading

Technorati Tags: building energy analysis,BIM,BEM,energy simulation,Autodesk,green building,green building studio,infrastructure modeler,urban design,C40,carbon analysis,renewable energy,carbon emissions,EUI By: John Kennedy Who this is for: Urban Designers, Energy Analysts, Building Scientists, Engineers performing energy modeling. Takeaway: Analyzing the energy, carbon, water, and renewable energy use of buildings in Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler is now possible, and enabling a building modeling environment to work with Green Building Studio’s API took less than a week’s worth of coding. For those of you not familiar with Autodesk’s Infrastructure Modeler (AIM), which is part of Autodesk’s Infrastructure Design Suite, it is an ultra-cool solution for modeling the built environment... Continue reading

Who is this for: Architects, engineers, vendors and developers involved with building energy analysis who have software development skills. Takeaway: Announcing GBS API pilot ADN program. Describe what GBS API is and what it can do for you. A typical or manual building performance analysis workflow to solve a real world problem usually will take days if not weeks to complete. The GBS API will enable you to automate the process and significantly reduce the time required to get to a final design. There will be a follow up post in a few days to provide an example to solve... Continue reading

First of all I want to wish all our readers the best for 2013. I hope you all have a fantastic year!! I received many requests for my Tunnel Subassembly that I have been using during the Bridge/Tunnel Webinar in December last year. Here it is… The Tunnel subassembly can... Continue reading