The video below details how to conduct a shadow mapping analysis with the VI-Suite. In this context shadow mapping is the prediction of how often points in space are in direct sunlight when the sun is above the horizon. Simulations with the VI-Suite can be done for any portion of the year and use any mesh geometry within the scene as the calculation points. The example image below shows an annual shadow map, with 4 calculations per hour, using the urban building geometry as the calculation points. One of the advantages of this approach is that once the simulation is complete the results are fully navigable in Blender.

A couple of changes have been made to the wind rose creation capabilities in version 0.4. The colour mapping of the created wind rose can now be selected within the wind rose node and wind metrics can now be displayed within the 3D scene using the VI-Suite’s new display framework.

Video below. Enjoy.

I am very happy to announce the general availability of VI-Suite version 0.4. Some user-preferences have been added in this version and the tutorial video below details these changes along with activating the VI-Suite and creating your first node. The video assumes you have downloaded the zip file for your platform from the main VI-Suite website and extracted the folder within to somewhere on your computer. Remember that the destination for the folder should not have any spaces in it so ‘/Users/ryan/Desktop’ would be fine but ‘/Users/ryan/My Folder’ would not.