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Su2ds – Daylight Analysis in Google Sketchup

Su2ds is a plug-in for Google Sketchup that links Sketchup with Daysim, a daylight-modeling program developed by Christoph Reinhart and the National Research Council (NRC). To analyze a building, Daysim requires a description of the building’s geometry and climate, which it uses to produce numerical results describing the building’s daylight performance. Dayism does not have features for producing the inputs it requires, or displaying the outputs it produces. Su2ds was designed to enable Sketchup to complete these tasks.

Su2ds was developed at Manasc Isaac as part of our initiative to increase the integration of building simulation into the building design process. The NRC’s Industrial Research Assistance Program provided funds to assist this effort. The plug-in is itself open source (source can be browsed and downloaded here), and uses contributions from several open-source projects, most notably su2rad and wxSU.

Manasc Isaac regularly uses su2ds in its building design activities. The plug-in and a manual to guide its explanation and use can be downloaded here.