Bring space, time, energy, and climate into the design process.
SOLARCHVISION-BIM is an open-source desktop application for 3D modeling and solar-climatic analysis. It brings building and site geometry together with geographic context, supported weather and climate data, and time-dependent visualization to help explore how the sun, local climate, weather, and design choices interact.
The SOLARCHVISION approach treats solar exposure and shade as context-dependent effects: they can be beneficial in one season or location and undesirable in another. Use the application to investigate design alternatives across buildings, façades, streets, courtyards, landscapes, neighborhoods, and solar-energy applications. By combining spatial models with time-varying environmental data, SOLARCHVISION-BIM helps design teams consider energy demand and production, daylight, comfort, health, and safety earlier in the design process.
- For: Architects, urban and landscape planners, renewable-energy specialists, researchers, educators, and project teams.
- Platforms: GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.
- License: GNU General Public License v2 (GPL-2.0).
- Repository: archmoj/solarchvision_bim
- Documentation: Command reference
Scope and limitations: SOLARCHVISION-BIM supports design exploration and environmental analysis. Results depend on the model, location, input data, processing assumptions, and selected workflow. Outputs are not certified engineering calculations and do not replace professional review or specialist simulations where required.
- Why SOLARCHVISION-BIM?
- Get started
- What can you explore?
- Weather, climate, and geographic data
- Modeling and analysis workflow
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Command bar and automation
- The SOLARCHVISION approach
- Method and publications
- Technical overview
- Contribute and follow the project
- License
Many design questions are spatial and time-dependent: When does a façade receive useful solar radiation? When does the same exposure contribute to overheating? How do neighboring buildings and trees change shade in a public space? How might these effects vary across seasons, years, or forecast scenarios?
The SOLARCHVISION approach encourages early, integrated environmental analysis. Evaluating orientation, dimensions, layout, and form while design options are still flexible can reveal opportunities that may be harder to address later. Climate-aware design does not automatically mean higher construction costs: some improvements can come from adjusting core design parameters, although project costs and feasibility must be assessed individually.
The goal is not simply to maximize sunlight or minimize shade. It is to understand how design choices influence the natural and built environment across space, time, and energy, and to identify trade-offs before decisions are fixed.
SOLARCHVISION-BIM brings several parts of that investigation into one workspace:
- Model the place: Create and edit 3D buildings, surfaces, terrain, trees, and other site elements.
- Explore solar exposure: Investigate sun position, solar radiation, shading, and the effects of surrounding geometry.
- Consider benefits and risks: Explore when solar exposure may be useful and when shade, overheating, or seasonal environmental conditions may create design concerns.
- Connect design to location: Use geographic views, map imagery, station locations, and terrain context where available.
- Explore time and variability: Compare hours, days, years, and supported forecast scenarios; inspect statistical summaries and percentiles where available.
- Support design-team discussions: Use 3D views, graphs, and supported exports to communicate how proposed changes may affect buildings and outdoor spaces.
- Visualize environmental data: Explore supported weather layers and other spatial environmental fields.
- Build repeatable workflows: Use the graphical interface, command bar, scripts, and supported export formats.
- Use and extend open-source software: Inspect the code, report issues, and adapt the application to your needs.
The analyses available depend on the selected study, model setup, location, and dataset.
- Open the SOLARCHVISION-BIM GitHub repository.
- Download the repository as a ZIP file or clone it with Git.
- Open the
distdirectory. - Run the executable intended for your operating system, following any release-specific instructions.
Clone the repository with HTTPS:
git clone https://github.com/archmoj/solarchvision_bim.gitFor a smaller, shallow clone:
git clone https://github.com/archmoj/solarchvision_bim.git --depth 1Or use SSH if you have an SSH key configured with GitHub:
git clone git@github.com:archmoj/solarchvision_bim.gitPre-built files and launch requirements can vary by release. If the application does not start, check the repository instructions and the files supplied in dist for your platform.
Start with one clear question—for example, how shade on a building or outdoor space changes throughout the day.
- Choose a location. Use the
Locationmenu to set the project location. - Load suitable data. Load an available weather or climate dataset for the location.
- Create a simple scene. Use
3D-createto add geometry, or import a supported.objmodel. - Choose a study. Open the
Analysismenu and select an available solar or environmental study. - Inspect the result. Use the 3D view and available study graphs.
- Move through time. Use the Case Bar to select hours, days, years, or forecast scenarios supported by the dataset.
- Save or export. Save the project or use an available export workflow.
For model-based studies such as Skin Potential (Active) and Skin Potential (Passive), prepare a selected Section or Camera using PreBake Viewport or Pre-bake Selected Sections where required by the workflow.
- 3D view: Create, select, edit, and inspect buildings, surfaces, terrain, trees, and other objects. Supported environmental effects are visualized here.
- World view: Explore geographic context, select a project location, and work with available map, station, and terrain information.
- Study/time view: Inspect time-series graphs, environmental studies, and statistical or scenario results.
- Case Bar: Choose the hours, days, and scenarios or years included in a study, and select a statistical summary where available.
- Command bar: Enter commands for precise settings and repeatable workflows. Press
TABto show or hide it.
The initial layout can vary. Use the Setup menu to switch among available 3D models and time-view layouts.
- Compare building form, orientation, surface exposure, and shading.
- Investigate how surrounding geometry affects solar access.
- Explore changes in solar exposure across hours, seasons, and supported weather scenarios.
- Consider trade-offs between useful solar gains and unwanted exposure.
- Examine relationships among building massing, open space, and surrounding context.
- Explore solar access and shadow patterns in streets, courtyards, parks, and other public spaces.
- Investigate the influence of neighboring buildings, trees, and shading structures.
- Use geographic and weather context to inform early-stage comparisons.
- Represent terrain, trees, and site elements in a 3D scene.
- Explore how vegetation and structures affect shade and solar exposure.
- Compare landscape alternatives across seasons.
- Work with supported weather, climate, observation, and ensemble forecast datasets.
- Compare selected hours, days, years, and forecast scenarios.
- Inspect statistical summaries such as minimum, average, maximum, and percentiles where supported.
- Visualize selected environmental fields and export geometry or model states for other workflows.
These analyses can inform early design, option comparison, and design refinement. Depending on the project and the data available, they may help teams identify locations that warrant closer review for uncomfortable solar exposure, excessive shade, overheating, or seasonal energy and safety concerns—including under selected extreme-weather conditions. These are screening and design-support insights, not a substitute for formal risk assessment or detailed daylight, thermal-comfort, whole-building energy, structural, or other specialist simulations when required.
Use the Location menu to select a project location and load or download supported weather and geographic data. EPW/TMY data are used by default when available. Other supported sources and workflows include:
- CWEEDS: Multi-year engineering climate data for Canadian locations.
- CLMREC: Supported climate-record data.
- NAEFS: Ensemble forecast data for exploring a range of forecast scenarios.
- SWOB: Meteorological observations.
- HRDPS/GDPS forecast imagery: Available through the atmospheric visualization workflow where configured.
Coverage and availability vary by location and workflow. Some geographic features, including terrain mesh and terrain texture, require an API key. For Canadian CWEEDS data, consult Engineering Climate Datasets. CWEEDS files are expected under input/climate/CWEEDS/.
Confirm the source, geographic representativeness, time coverage, units, missing values, and processing assumptions. Typical weather years, historical records, recent observations, deterministic forecasts, and ensemble forecasts describe different aspects of environmental conditions and should not be treated as interchangeable.
A typical weather file is useful for many building-energy workflows, but it does not represent every possible weather pattern or extreme. A forecast is not a climate projection, and a single observation station is not automatically representative of the project site.
Solar quantities need particular care. A dataset may not provide solar radiation directly, or may provide it at a coarser time step than the analysis requires. Some workflows may derive direct and diffuse solar components from other forecast parameters or estimate hourly values from coarser intervals. Such values are derived estimates, not direct measurements; they depend on the source data, method, and assumptions. When using estimated or interpolated data, document the source variables, time step, assumptions, and uncertainty.
The appropriate study depends on the design stage and the question being asked. A quick sun-path review can help with orientation, while time-dependent studies using representative weather or climate data can reveal seasonal patterns that a single date or image may miss. For building-skin and urban-fabric studies, where the required inputs and workflows are available, hourly analysis over a year—or comparison across multiple years—can help distinguish recurring patterns from conditions tied to a particular period.
When comparing design alternatives, consider:
- Surface orientation and inclination. Compare relevant façades, roofs, canopies, and other surfaces.
- Direct and diffuse components. Where supported, consider these separately before interpreting global solar exposure.
- Shading and surrounding geometry. Review how building form, adjacent buildings, trees, and other obstructions alter solar access.
- Seasonal context. Compare periods when solar gains may be useful with periods when exposure may contribute to overheating or other undesirable effects.
- Variability and extremes. Alongside averages, inspect relevant extremes and probabilities when the available dataset supports them.
Before comparing results, record the site and orientation, dataset and period, whether solar values are measured or derived, temporal resolution, selected statistic or forecast members, and relevant assumptions. Compare like with like and state limitations when presenting findings.
Use the 3D-create menu to add supported objects, including houses, parametric surfaces, boxes, cones, cushions, cylinders, spheres, planes, polygons, extrusions, surfaces, polylines, points, trees, people, and cameras.
After choosing an object type, click in the 3D view to place it:
- Right-click: Place the object on the land surface.
- Left-click: Place the object on the surface of an existing 3D model.
Default creation parameters are available under Geometries & Space → Create. Use 3D-select, 3D-alter, 3D-modify, and 3D-match to select, adjust, modify, and align objects. The application supports importing .obj files as well as its own scene geometry.
Start with an available study in the Analysis menu. General studies include wind patterns, orientation potential, hourly sun position, and annual sun paths, with active and passive variants where offered.
Use the 3D-shade menu to change the visualization, including options such as Shade Global Solar where available. Move through time to see how the display changes. Interpret colors and values according to the selected layer and its units; different layers can represent different environmental quantities.
The Case Bar sits above the command bar. Its range controls let you select:
- Hours within the available data period.
- Days to include in the study.
- Scenarios for ensemble forecasts, or Years for multi-year climate input.
Use a left-click to set the start of a range and a right-click to set its end. Available statistical choices include minimum, average, maximum, the 25th, 50th (median), and 75th percentiles, plus built-in Middle, Mid-High, and Mid-Low selections. These options are not interchangeable: choose the statistic or scenario selection that matches the question being investigated.
Use the application's project save/load functions to retain supported scene and study information. Available export workflows include OBJ geometry, time-series or date-series OBJ, RAD, SCR, and HTML. These formats serve different purposes; check the target application's documentation before relying on an export for downstream production work.
Shortcuts may behave differently when a text field or the command bar has focus.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
TAB |
Show or hide the command bar |
Shift+TAB |
Switch between active and passive impact views in the 3D view |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
` / ~ |
Cycle through world-view zoom levels |
+ / - |
Zoom the 3D view in or out |
Ctrl+, / Ctrl+. |
Move the camera closer to or farther from the selection |
, / . |
Move the camera closer or farther |
2 / 8 |
Rotate the camera up or down |
4 / 6 |
Rotate the camera left or right |
1 / 3 |
Move the camera left or right |
7 / 9 |
Move the camera up or down |
5 |
Aim the camera at the selection, or the origin if nothing is selected |
0 |
Move the camera closer |
/ / * |
Move the camera toward or away from the selection |
| Arrow keys | Rotate the camera around the selection |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
DELETE |
Delete selected items |
Shift+UP / Shift+DOWN |
Move, rotate, scale, or adjust selection properties, depending on the active control |
c / C |
Switch to available cameras in the scene |
ENTER |
Rebuild global and vertex solar-energy/impact data |
SPACE |
Advance time and shade the view |
BACKSPACE |
Move time backward and shade the view |
Alt+RIGHT |
Advance time |
Alt+LEFT |
Rewind time |
Alt+UP |
Advance month |
Alt+DOWN |
Rewind month |
d / D |
Change the impact-display day in the 3D view |
t / T |
Change the forecast hour used for atmospheric visualization |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+UP / Ctrl+DOWN |
Change the weather layer in the hourly graph |
Ctrl+LEFT / Ctrl+RIGHT |
Change the impact layer in the daily graph |
Ctrl+PAGE_UP / Ctrl+PAGE_DOWN |
Switch among numbered layouts available in Setup |
Ctrl+; |
Show or hide the impact summary |
Ctrl+' / Ctrl+" |
Adjust the hourly graph's vertical scale factor |
< / > |
Change the number of joined days |
( / ) |
Change the number of displayed days |
[ / ] |
Change the horizontal interval of the probability graph |
{ / } |
Change the vertical interval of the probability graph |
s / S |
Change the sky scenario: all data, sunny, partly cloudy, or cloudy |
v / V |
Show or hide raw values on the hourly graph |
b / B |
Show or hide probabilities on the hourly graph |
n / N |
Show or hide statistics on the hourly graph |
m / M |
Show or hide sorted values on the hourly graph |
The command bar is optional. It is useful for setting values precisely, repeating operations, or running commands from scripts. Press TAB to show or hide it, or click inside the dark command area at the bottom of the interface.
See the command reference for commands covering project files, object creation and editing, camera and view controls, dates, palettes, latitude/longitude, numeric controls, and on/off settings. For example, day 15 sets the day value through the command interface.
Solar-climatic vision means looking at architecture and urban space from the perspectives of the sun and climate. Rather than treating sunlight as an unqualified benefit or relying only on a sun-path diagram, investigate where radiation reaches a surface or space, when it arrives, and whether its effect is desirable under local climatic conditions.
The approach treats solar design as an integrated problem spanning building form, orientation, the building skin, outdoor space, urban fabric, and renewable-energy systems. It considers both immediate design decisions and longer-term performance across seasons and changing weather conditions. The analysis is most useful when introduced early enough to influence fundamental choices—such as orientation, dimensions, layout, façade proportions, landscape placement, and shading—rather than being used only to check a nearly finished design.
The purpose is to help a project team identify promising options, recognize areas that may need further investigation, and exchange evidence in forms that support discussion among architects, landscape architects, urban planners, energy modelers, clients, municipalities, and other decision-makers.
- Active solar strategy: Shape and orient buildings and surfaces to make solar energy available for useful purposes. Depending on the project and systems, this may include solar collection or electricity generation.
- Passive solar-climatic strategy: Evaluate both beneficial and undesirable effects of solar radiation on buildings and outdoor spaces. Solar heat gains can help during cold periods but contribute to overheating during warm periods.
A design should not maximize solar exposure everywhere. It should balance useful gains and unwanted exposure while considering daylight, views, ventilation, construction, operation, and the needs of people using the space.
The amount of solar radiation is not the same as its effect in a particular climate. The method described in the SOLARCHVISION publications includes the Degree of Need to Shade/Shine, which relates solar radiation to the difference between outdoor temperature and a desired indoor temperature. This provides a way to distinguish periods when solar radiation may be beneficial from periods when shading or other responses may be desirable.
- Building skin: Study each orientation, transparent and opaque surfaces, overhangs, vertical and horizontal shading, and reflective elements.
- Building form and layout: Compare orientation, proportions, massing, self-shading, and the relationship between transparent and opaque surfaces.
- Indoor and outdoor conditions: Consider how solar exposure and shade may affect energy demand, daylight, comfort, and use of interior and exterior spaces.
- Outdoor space and urban fabric: Examine how buildings, street orientation, spacing, trees, terrain, and secondary structures affect courtyards, sidewalks, plazas, and other public spaces.
- Renewable-energy systems and site planning: Where relevant, consider solar collectors and other renewable-energy elements alongside building and landscape decisions; combine solar-climatic information with geographic and planning layers where supported.
- Establish the context. Confirm location, orientation, topography where relevant, intended use, surrounding geometry, and the quality and coverage of available climate data.
- Choose meaningful periods and data types. Consider representative climate patterns and relevant extremes. Where appropriate, compare long-term records, observations, and forecast scenarios.
- Check the solar inputs. Confirm whether direct, diffuse, and global radiation values are supplied, estimated, interpolated, or post-processed. Note the time step and assumptions.
- Map performance and potential risks. Review relevant surfaces and indoor or outdoor spaces across hours, days, and seasons. Look for both beneficial conditions and potential problems such as excessive exposure, persistent shade, overheating, or seasonal safety concerns.
- Generate alternatives. Test changes to orientation, massing, transparent and opaque façade areas, shading devices, trees, landscape elements, and public-space layout where appropriate.
- Compare trade-offs. Consider energy demand and production, comfort, daylight, health, safety, views, constructability, operation, and effects on neighboring spaces together.
- Communicate and refine. Share views, graphs, and supported exports with the design team; repeat the analysis after design changes. Use specialist daylight, thermal, energy, wind, safety, or other simulation tools where required.
The method can inform early design, refinement of building or landscape elements, and review of existing places. It supports the identification of design questions and alternatives; it does not guarantee a universally optimal design or replace formal risk assessment or specialist calculations.
The following publications describe the principles behind SOLARCHVISION's solar-climatic approach and show how weather data, solar orientation, building geometry, and urban context can inform design decisions.
- Samimi, Mojtaba, and Farshad Nasrollahi. Intelligent Design using Solar-Climatic Vision: Energy and Comfort Improvement in Architecture and Urban Planning using SOLARCHVISION. Young Cities Research Paper Series, Volume 09, 2014.
- Samimi, Mojtaba. “Weather Data and Solar Orientations.” In Future City: Architecture for Optimal Living, edited by Stamatina Th. Rassia and Panos M. Pardalos, Springer, 2015, pp. 221–240.
- SOLARCHVISION presentation at Ouranos
- BIM6D presentation
The application includes a 3D geometry system for points, faces, solids, groups, polylines, materials, and 1D/2D models. Supported workflows include object creation, selection, transformation, grouping, visibility, layers, and material assignment. Procedural vegetation and parametric objects can represent aspects of the built and natural environment.
The interface provides 3D, world/geographic, and study/time views. Rendering supports perspective and orthographic cameras, surface and edge display, analytical overlays, and cached or clipped rendering for interactive performance.
Solar workflows use the project location and time, weather or climate radiation data, and modeled geometry. Supported calculations and visualizations include solar direction, direct and diffuse radiation handling, shadow/occlusion calculations, and surface-level impact display. Other environmental features may include wind visualization, wind-rose views, environmental impact fields, contours, raster-like representations, and atmospheric/cloud visualization. Exact outputs depend on the selected study and available data.
Supported workflows include EPW/TMY, CWEEDS, CLMREC, ensemble forecast and observation data, and meteorological station data. Loading, processing, and analysis workflows prepare source data for variables and visual layers. Ensemble and multi-year data can be explored across hours, days, scenarios, and years, with statistical summaries and percentile-based views where supported.
The geographic subsystem supports latitude/longitude positioning, map projections, map tiles, station locations, zoom levels, and terrain visualization. The Earth model can display map imagery around the project location with geographic-grid and terrain context. Time-dependent studies can be explored by hour, day, season, annual period, forecast period, or scenario, depending on the dataset.
Project persistence uses structured XML for supported model geometry, layers, materials, station information, time state, study configuration, analysis settings, and object properties. The command system supports interactive entry and scripts or text files for repeatable operations. Export options include OBJ, time-series/date-series OBJ, RAD, SCR, and HTML.
A typical supported workflow is:
Building or Site Model + Geographic Location
↓
Weather / Climate Data
↓
Select Time and Scenarios
↓
Solar / Shade / Environmental Study
↓
Explore 3D Views and Study Graphs
↓
Save or Export
For exact commands and additional workflows, consult the command reference.
SOLARCHVISION-BIM is open source. If it is useful to your work:
- Star the repository to help others discover it.
- Follow the project for updates.
- Try it and report issues through the GitHub repository.
- Explore the code and contribute improvements, documentation, or bug reports.
When reporting an issue, include your operating system, the steps to reproduce the problem, the relevant dataset or workflow, and any error message that may help diagnose it.
The source code and documentation are released under the GNU General Public License v2.