Estimating the daily solar irradiation on building roofs and facades using Blender Cycles path tracing algorithm

AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland

^a Corresponding author: mateuszilba@wp.pl

Abstract

The paper presents the development of an daily solar irradiation algorithm with application of the free software Blender. Considerable attention was paid to the possibilities of simulation of reflections of direct and diffuse solar radiation. For this purpose, the rendering algorithm “Cycles” was used, based on the principle of bi-directional path tracing – tracing random paths of light beams. The value of global radiation in this study is the sum of four components: direct beam radiation, reflected beam radiation, diffuse radiation and reflected diffuse radiation. The developed algorithm allows calculation of solar irradiation for all elements of the 3D model created in Blender, or imported from an external source. One minute is the highest possible time resolution of the analysis, while the accuracy is dependent on the resolution of textures defined for each element of a 3D object. The analysed data is stored in the form of textures that in the algorithm are converted to the value of solar radiance. The result of the analysis is visualization, which shows the distribution of daily solar irradiation on all defined elements of the 3D model.