We are happy to report that Autodesk, Inc. has recently completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets related to the Ecotect software tools for conceptual building performance analysis from both Square One Research Ltd and Dr Andrew J Marsh.

Read the full Autodesk press release.

Autodesk currently plans to continue support of the existing Ecotect and its related tools. A limited 30 day free trial version of Ecotect v5.60 is available for download. This trial version provides all of the functionality of Ecotect, SolarTool and WeatherTool, minus the ability to save or print. The trial will expire 30 days after install and requires acceptance of the end-user license agreement (EULA) that accompanies the product.

Please check back regularly for updates on product availability in the near future.

Autodesk ECOTECT

Autodesk^® Ecotect™ is a comprehensive conceptual building performance analysis tool that covers a wide range of simulation and analysis functions required to truly understand how a building design will operate and perform. Environmental design principles, such as solar, thermal, lighting, shadows & shading design, energy & building regulations, acoustics, air flow, are most effectively addressed in the early phases of the design process. With ECOTECT, architects and engineers can measure how fundamental criteria will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. Architects and designers work easily in 3D and apply all the tools necessary for an energy efficient and sustainable future.

Solar Tool

With its interactive user interface, the Solar Tool makes the process of accurately sizing and positioning overhangs, shading devices and louvres easy. This tool helps architects, planners and building services engineers who need to consider the extent of solar penetration into buildings, overshadowing or the most appropriate means of shading a window.

Weather Tool

The Weather Tool is a visualisation and analysis program for hourly climate data. It recognises a wide range of international weather file formats as well as allowing users to specify customised data import formats for ASCII files. It also provides a wide range of display options, including both 2D and 3D graphs as well as wind roses and sun-path diagrams.

Available Utilities

Conversion Tool

A quick Window's conversion utility for all types of units of measure from all branches of physics, engineering and architecture. Based on a customisable data file with an extensive list of even the most obscure units, it allows multiple, simultaneous conversions and automatic inference from entered units abreviations. The customisable data file also allows the definition of complex formula for conversion to and from a unit, significantly increasing the range of possible conversions.

A wide range of units of every type has already been covered, however, if you know of a particular unit that hasn't made it into the list yet, please contact us with details and we'll make it available to all.

Location Tool

Provides access to a searchable database of latitude, longitude and time-zones for over 160,000 towns, cities and geographic features around the world. Locations can be searched by name, by clicking on a map or by entering a latitude/longitude pair.

By selecting an item from the list or by clicking on the map, the Location Tool can communicate location details directly to ECOTECT, The Weather Tool and The Solar Tool.

Notes Tool

The Notes Tool provides a useful multi-page rich text editor with OLE support, a built-in multi-month calendar, a range of date and time stamping functions and context-sensitive ShellExecute features for automatically launching applications, commonly edited files, URLs and email addresses embedded in documents.

Basically I needed a quick and easy electronic scrapbook to hierachically store ideas, links, notes and to-do lists in, and then be able to quickly access them later. There didn't seem to be much around that suited my needs so I wrote this. I use it pretty much everyday so it's a bit eclectic in its features, however it is flexible and adaptable to a wide range of uses so it may prove useful to other people as well.

PMV Tool

The Predicted Mean Vote Tool is another implementation of ISO 7730-1993 (E) for calculating human comfort based on environmental conditions. This tool has the advantage of being able to input a required comfort setting and it will automatically calculate the environmental factors required to achieve it.

Psycho Tool

The Psycho Tool is an interactive graphical Psychrometric Chart. Psychrometrics is basically the study of moist air, based on the relationship between air temperature and absolute humidity. In this tool, the various axis are explained as well as various thermal processes. Multiple points can also be plotted and the resulting values stored.

The Psycho Tool also contains an implementation of ISO 7730-1993 (E) for calculating the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV), a predictive measure of human comfort. The application allows for the interactive manipulation of all factors that affect the PMV comfort vote.

Ruler Tool

The Ruler Tool is a great little utility for accurately measuring anything on your computer screen. This includes images, font heights, dialog boxes, etc. This can be very useful for web work and graphic design - allowing you to avoid having to screen-grab and view in an image manipulation package.

The ability to make the ruler semi-transparent and then drag a line or region exactly over the area you are interested in makes lining things up extremely easy and accurate. Moreover, you can set your own custom scales and even reverse and rotate the whole ruler. Best of all, it is completely free.

Teaching Tools

Teaching Tools are a series of utilities and applets initially developed to explain and demonstrate important building analysis concepts through animation and interactive play. Their graphical nature makes them useful to individuals interested in the field, in demonstrations by teachers, lecturers and academics or to student groups used as part of structured workshops. Over the past few years they have been gradually refined through use in a range of different courses and are now available for public download.

Wave Tool

This is a simple tool that animates and demonstrates principles of planar and spherical longitudinal wave propagation. Users have interactive control of frequency, amplitude, displacement and fluid viscosity, as well as a range of display and animation properties. The source position can be repositioned anywhere within the grid and the animation paused and stepped through to explain the process.