Hello,
Would anyone be able to give some detail of how the Solar Analysis for Dynamo Package works? I’m able to use the nodes to carry out the functions, but for research purposes I would really like to understand how the values produced by the SolarAnalysis.Analyze are determined?
Any help would be appreciated.
Hi,
Yes I have, it is my understanding that it has since been updated, it certainly still seems to work for me. I’ve reviewed the package data though dynamo but this doesn’t answer my query about how it all works.
Most package developers work with Github.
Maybe you can find recent info there
I believe that is a closed repo, though I could be wrong. Check out the Ladybug package - it’s open sourced and quite accessible.
This has been created by the Dynamo team. @Zach_Kron or @Racel might be able to give you some more info
I see this is really old topic, but I also noticed the package is still supported:
It seems pretty straightforward to use - you jest specify shading and analysis surfaces, weather data and datetime. However, I noticed something strange:
I get a different number of points and calculated values, so its a bit unclear on how to interpret the data 
It might still be nice to have some kind of documentation
Alternatively, one could just ask ask chatGPT for sunlight vectors for a specific location, given a datetime, use them to project shading surfaces onto an analysis one and make some calculations to get an average of shaded area throughout a specific day:
This is what I am doing now, but it’s not the best workaround.
Ladybug tools has not been supported for Dynamo since 2021 I think, so it seems like the only way to make a proper Solar analysis in Revit computationally, without having to invent weird workarounds at the moment is by using Rhino Inside
You can tecnnically get sun vectors from revit and use them alternatively, then use mesh ray to check for sun rays. Grasshopper/RI is a lot faster though.
yeah definitely but that’s still a workaround. RI seems to still be the only proper option
Dynamo itself is technically a workaround to a missing revit feature too i guess. The vector python node I use could technically stand in for the sun vector creation of any similar workflow.
yeah, that’s true! but in any case, you would need to somehow recreate sun vectors, project geometry, calculate, think of a way to visualize the result (in case you would need to), etc. It’s just too much hustle when there already are working solutions out there
Revit can do solar analysis quite well internally via add-ins, which means a feature could be baked in without too much issue. But every time I’ve seen it’ reviewed it goes one of two ways:
If you need the former check out Forma. if you need the later, check out CFD. If you need an in between… 
I don’t want to change the subject but I wanted to add Insight when it comes building analysis issue. I have only used Insight so far. I don’t know where Insight stays among CFD and Forma. But I think Insight can also be used. (for checking out building form, building orientation, and analyzing daylighting - occupancy controls, etc.)
In my case it’s a matter of using solar analysis for computational purposes, not just merely analyzing a specific volume. Lets say you want to test certain design variations in terms of making your building’s inner courtyard receive the maximum amount of solar energy. How would you do that with conventional methods? If I understand correctly, one should export lets say 50 or 100 different building volume variations and analyze them manually one by one? it is for these purposes that I meant you generally have two different paths - invent your own method of evaluation from scratch in Dynamo or simply use Grasshopper and Rhino Inside. I would generally do that just for initial rough evaluation and then go to Insight for a more detailed analysis. In terms of Forma, if I remember correctly, when it was still called “Spacemaker” it used to offer some generative design features, based on different criteria, including optimized solar radiation, etc. I recently tested Forma, but I found most of these features are gone. Perhaps they are under some kind of redevelopment. In any case, at the moment you can still use Forma in the same way - manually generate design variations, import and analyze them one by one 
If this is the case then we don’t need the specific amount of energy received just yet - we need an abstraction for the analysis and a means of adapting our envelope. VASA does the extraction exceptionally well while Generative Design does the form generation. When we have a final result or two (or 10) we shift those into Forma via Dynamo for Forma for the final analysis, then finally take our schematic massing into Revit via the Forma add-in for Revit.
You can utilize the SolarAnalysis package but as you noticed the documentation is limited to the node inputs and results are somewhat hard to find. If it were to be open sourced I’d be willing to spend some time documenting it but personally I find there are better (faster) workflows out there (VASA).
It does point to a flaw in the ‘everything in Revit’ methodologies in that there is no formal solar analysis toolset at a schematic level.
yeah, that’s true. I was actually not familiar with VASA, checking it out now. It might work well for my specific case at the moment
