Review of Heliodon Developments and Computational Tools for Building Shadow Analysis

In the last decade, the analysis of shading or sunlight in architectural projects has become an important role in improving building thermal and lighting performances. Selecting an appropriate software tool for this type of analysis is a challenging task given the little information available. There...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Buildings (Basel) 2022-05, Vol.12 (5), p.627
Main Authors: Salgado-Conrado, Lizbeth, Lopez-Montelongo, Areli, Alvarez-Macias, Carlos, Hernadez-Jaquez, Jose
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air conditioning
Architecture
Classification
Computer applications
Design
Designers
Energy consumption
Error analysis
Green buildings
heliodon
Lamps
Learning curves
Light
Light sources
Radiation
Scale models
shadow
Shadows
Software development tools
Software packages
Sun
sunlight
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Summary:In the last decade, the analysis of shading or sunlight in architectural projects has become an important role in improving building thermal and lighting performances. Selecting an appropriate software tool for this type of analysis is a challenging task given the little information available. Therefore, the paper reviews the existing literature on heliodon designs and computational tools for building shadow analysis. The review includes a detailed description and classification of various types of heliodons, along with their operating principles and geometric features that affect their performance, including light sources, positioning mechanisms, and structures. This paper also includes descriptions and classification of the computational tools for testing building shadow patterns and applications in architecture. Moreover, this paper shows the capabilities of different software packages and their essential features, strengths, and limitations. In addition, we identified the current gaps in the literature on heliodons and computational tools. According to the results, for the case of heliodons, there is a lack of error analysis and a standardized calibration process, therefore, repeatability of the results is difficult to achieve. In the case of computational tools, they have reached a higher degree of success in the market than the heliodons, however, the cost of licensing and learning curve can be a limitation.
ISSN:2075-5309
2075-5309
DOI:10.3390/buildings12050627