I am wondering what the planned release dates are for Ladybug Tools, and in particular, what versions of E+, Open Studio and Radiance will be needed?
As our summer recess starts, our technical staff are planning the computer setups for the March to October 2023 first and second trimesters.
They need to build an image to distribute across our multitude of undergrad computers which ensures that we have the optimum combination of versions. As our Tri 1 to Tri 2 break is for 4 weeks in June/July 2023, we would rather not have to make a change then, but we have coped in the past. What I want to ensure is that what we have on our machines in mid-February is the same LBT /Open Studio / Radiance version that students can install on their home computer in the March to June first trimester of teaching.
I note for example that Radiance lists: Radiance 5.4a (2022-12-04) ‘Pre-release’ …
For future reference, we try to release soon after the OpenStudio release, which happens on a 6-month cycle in late Fall and then again in late Spring (though the exact dates vary). Typically, you know that a release is immanent when there’s a stable release of the OpenStudio Application:
And, about a month or so before that, you’ll see a release of the OpenStudio SDK:
No problem whatsoever. Trimester 1 is March to June. So plenty of time over the summer break to sort out the image for our in house computers.
We will need to be careful about the winter term break when the tech folks would rather not upgrade our 600+ (Windows) computers. That is because the winter trimester (July to October) is when I hope to run again the introduction exercise looking at energy, energy balance, comfort and daylight in a pre built shoebox within a 3D model of a urban environment. This ran in 2022 for 300+ first year students and was only feasible on the students’ laptops. If we have the students only able to download v1.7 while our local computers run v1.6 we could create more chaos than resolving the Mac installation issues! (Note most of those issues arose because lots of folks ignored your instructions about installing Radiance and OpenStudio!)
I am excited to explore the Carbon calculator plus the custom graphics options.