QUESTION:

Can ECOTECT calculate the amount of solar radiation that hits a surface exposed to the sun ?

If so, how would I do this ?

ANSWER:

Yes this is possible.

Simply select an object in your model that you want to calculate the exposure for, then go to Calculate » Solar Exposure in the menu. Once the dialog box is loaded click the Recalculate button to perform the calculation for a single day.

In order to get diffuse values you will need to make sure an Inter-zonal Adjacency calculation is done before calculating exposure. If this is not done a dialog box will be displayed warning about this.

Finally a useful tip... if you hold down the Control Key whilst dragging the Select Date Slider the calculations will be updated automatically. If you have a slow computer though, this may not be very quick to re-calc.