Dear Building Simulation 2011 attendee (or Sydney resident),

DIVA is a Radiance/Daysim/EnergyPlus plug-in that we have developed for the Rhinoceros/Grasshopper - NURBS modeler for Windows. DIVA supports a series of performance evaluations including:

- Physically-based scene visualizations (Radiance)

- Annual radiation maps (Radiance/GenCumulativeSky)

- Climate-based daylighting metrics (Daysim)

- Glare analysis (Evalglare)

- LEED IEQ Credit 8.1 compliance (Radiance)

- Hourly load calculations (EnergyPlus)

The plug-in offers highly optimized simulation workflows within Rhino and can be combined with parametric Grasshopper scripting in order to generate animated simulation movies (see for example http://vimeo.com/31269386). More information can be found at www.diva-for-rhino.com and http://wiki.diva-for-rhino.com/HomePage. DIVA is currently available free of charge from http://www.diva-for-rhino.com/download.html.

Alstan Jakubiec and I will be attending Building Simulation 2011 next week in Sydney and - if there is sufficient interest - we will be offering a 3 hour hands-on DIVA workshop on Thursday, November 17, from 9AM to noon at the University of Sydney, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning. The workshop fee would be $US250 per participant. (We do not have a student rate at this point.) If you are interested in participating, please send me a brief email by November 8, 10AM EST. Based on the number of responses we will announce the workshop tomorrow.

Best regards,

Christoph Reinhart