Integrating CFD and VR for indoor thermal environment design feedback

Abstract

In the context of environmental consideration and improvement of living standards, design of high performance buildings that are both comfortable and energy saving is important. Simulation tools (such as CFD) enables analysing and visualizing environmental factors (such as temperature and airflow) based on the design properties and can be used to improve the building design for better performance. However, these tools have limitations in providing interactivity with users for creating multiple CFD visualization results to be used for analysing design options. This research presents an integrated design tool which consists of CFD and VR technologies. The proposed system visualizes CFD results in a VR environment together with architectural design. Additionally, it enables configuring CFD parameters within the VR environment and allows repeatedly executing simulation and visualizing updated results. The proposed system enables visualizing information in relationship with the actual architectural design, space configuration and thermal environment, and provides efficient design feedbacks.