Is ClimateStudio accurate?

Yes. ClimateStudio is built on the validated simulation engines EnergyPlus and Radiance. While its novel path tracing approach makes ClimateStudio much faster than legacy lighting tools, its results are no less accurate. In fact, by eliminating the use of low-quality settings, ClimateStudio achieves higher out-of-the-box fidelity than its predecessors.

In the study below, Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA) has been computed for a sidelit office in Boston, Massachusetts. For each cardinal orientation (North, South, East, West), a ClimateStudio simulation is shown alongside a Daysim calculation for the same model, as well as a brute-force time series in Radiance. The Daysim and Radiance simulations were conducted with high-fidelity settings, for reasonable establishment of “ground truth.” Despite the differences in speed, all three methods arrive at the same result.

Because Daysim takes so long to produce an accurate result, legacy daylighting tools have tended to use low-fidelity settings out of the box, compromising accuracy to gain speed. DIVA-for-Rhino, for example, uses a default limit of two ambient light bounces, rather than seven. The resulting simulations run in just under a minute but are systematically wrong. For two of the four orientations, the error is the difference between earning a LEED credit and not.

ClimateStudio makes no such concessions. Its initial returns contain noise, but are centered on an accurate signal. And importantly, you need not worry about increasing the quality of settings, or navigating a confusing set of Radiance parameters to obtain correct results. Simply click "Start", and watch the results converge!