Comparison between Sunhour Software Results and Autodesk FormIt360 as a Solar Based Application Analysis

Abstract

The complexity of design process and climate issues for architecture students often leaves behind design issues that are less responsive to the local environment. The design recommendations somehow lack of quantitative approaches, which are unable to achieve optimal building performance. Such as the solar analysis on buildings, especially in buildings with locations in tropical climates, can be both advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the urgency to do simulations to solar analysis buildings becomes necessary. There are many software about solar analysis and many studies have examined it. In this study will be discussed further about the comparison between the results of the Sunhour (Sketchup Plugin) and Autodesk FormIt 360 solar analysis software, where both software are widely used by architectural students and can be obtained free of charge. The building that became the case study in this study is the right-wing facade building of the FPTK UPI (Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia) located in Bandung City, analyzed with both software with the exact same location and time. The results from Sunhour and Autodesk FormIt360 compared were found to have correlated results.