RadVR: A 6DOF Virtual Reality Daylighting Analysis Tool
This addresses the need for better daylighting analysis tools for building designers, offering an incremental improvement by integrating VR into existing workflows.
The paper tackles the problem of daylighting analysis in building design by introducing RadVR, a virtual reality tool that combines qualitative immersive renderings with quantitative physically correct simulations, showing promising assistance in spatial understanding, navigation, and sun position analysis compared to a conventional 2D-display tool.
This work introduces RadVR, a virtual reality tool for daylighting analysis that simultaneously combines qualitative assessments through immersive real-time renderings with quantitative physically correct daylighting simulations in a 6DOF virtual environment. By taking a 3D building model with material properties as input, RadVR allows users to (1) perform physically-based daylighting simulations via Radiance, (2) study sunlight in different hours-of-the-year, (3) interact with a 9-point-in-time matrix for the most representative times of the year, and (4) visualize, compare, and analyze daylighting simulation results. With an end-to-end workflow, RadVR integrates with 3D modeling software that is commonly used by building designers. Additionally, by conducting user experiments we compare the proposed system with DIVA for Rhino, a Radiance-based tool that uses conventional 2D-displays. The results show that RadVR can provide promising assistance in spatial understanding tasks, navigation, and sun position analysis in virtual reality.