How to create Honeybee-models

I wonder what possibilities there are to create Honeybee-models right now? The ones that I think I know about are:

  • Rhino using the pollination plugin
  • Revit using the pollination plugin
  • grasshopper using Honeybee
  • grasshopper load from gbXML, OSM or IDF (I guess this means that you can use any tool that can export these formats)

How about creating Honeybee-models directly from Sketchup, Blender or ArchiCAD? If not, do you know of any reasonably easy way to get at least convert rooms and apparaturers like windows and doors into Honeybee/HBjson?

Hi @maxt,

The list looks good to me!

For SkecthUp, you can use the OpenStudio plugin to create an OSM file and then you can convert them to HBJSON.

For Blender, you should write your own translator using Python.

  1. You can use the Honeybee SKD to create the model. If there is a minimum sample file, I should be able to help.
  2. Use BlenderBIM to export the model as an IFC and then try to convert the IFC to HBJSON.

Similarly, for ArchiCAD, there are two pathways:

  1. Use ArchiCAD to Grasshopper connection to get the model to Grasshopper. I have seen several people doing that.
  2. Use the IFC export and write a translator to convert the IFC file to HBJSON.

There are a couple of unofficial translators from IFC/Blender to HBJSON. None that I have used extensively or I can guarantee to work but they can be good examples if you want to write your own translator.

  1. GitHub - devngc/honeybee-ifc
  2. TopologicSverchok/nodes/Topologic/EnergyModelExportToHBJSON.py at main · agonzalezesteve/TopologicSverchok · GitHub
  3. I know there was a project at UTM. @Ramana should be the right person to provide an update.
  4. And there is a topic here in IFCJS for $1000 which seems to be in progress (Google Advanced Web Apps Funds · Issue #136 · IFCjs/web-ifc-viewer · GitHub) - I’m not sure what happened to this item.

Hope it helps!

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