Inter-model comparison of five climate-based daylight modelling techniques

Abstract

The evolution of building facades towards increasingly smarter and more complex fenestration systems required an evolution in simulation capabilities too. While simulation software can reliably reproduce the system's optical behaviour, the climate-based daylight evaluation of entire buildings needs to efficiently combine accuracy and computation speed. Five state-of-the-art Climate-Based Daylight Modelling (CBDM) techniques to evaluate a space with fixed Venetian blinds are compared with each others. Multiple options to apply these techniques are also considered. The use of annual metrics based on global illumination led to a good agreement between all methods, while evaluating only direct sunlight exposed some profound differences between simulation techniques.