Project EnergyPlus Cloud to graduate to Insight 360

Since I mentioned Project Boulder's planned graduation into a future version of InfraWorks 360, I would be remiss if I did not mention the fate of Project EnergyPlus Cloud.

Project EnergyPlus Cloud was our technology preview for running EnergyPlus simulations in the cloud faster than on an average desktop computer. EnergyPlus is the most advanced whole building energy simulation program that engineers, architects, and researchers use to model energy and water use in buildings. EnergyPlus is widely used for high-performance building design, code compliance, and evaluation of advanced energy efficiency measures.

The goals of the technology preview included:

• Provide rapid analysis results for EnergyPlus annual simulations by several times faster than desktop simulations.
• Manage the EnergyPlus run process in the cloud without requiring any local computing resources.
• Provide an API to submit input files and receive simulation results

The technology preview has ended.

Autodesk Insight 360 is a powerful guide to Better Building Energy and Environmental Performance. It provides a fast, intuitive outcome-driven guide throughout the building lifecycle. Users can visualize and interact with key performance indicators, benchmarks, factors, ranges, and specifications with real-time cause and effect feedback. Users model with FormIt 360 Pro and Revit to generate insights using robust automatic analytical model creation and visualization of performance information directly in the modeling environment. Trusted industry leading simulation engines for whole building energy, heating, cooling, daylighting, and solar radiation simulation then run using innovative parallel cloud computing techniques to represent millions of potential outcomes at once. Users can organize and share insights with other stakeholders and access anywhere to from early targeting and feasibility all the way through to operation.

The plan is to graduate Project EnergyPlus Cloud into a future version of Insight 360. Thanks to everyone who participated in the project and provided feedback.

From these numbers, you can deduce that participating in a technology preview is not an onerous task. You are one of a handful of individuals who help shape the future of our technology. You join a project, fill out a survey, post to a forum, or send an email sharing your thoughts. If the collective feedback indicates that the technology should graduate, you can be assured that the production version will work with your data since you have already tried it for yourself. If the technology retires, you helped us make that determination so that we can focus our energies on another technology that you may prefer.

Graduation ceremonies will be alive in the lab.