Tutorials, releases, and stories from the team.

[cea-a-02] Trees…Do they matter?

The modelling of trees has been introduced into CEA v3.36.0. Now you can include trees in the solar radiation analysis. More features on trees will follow.

[cea-s-02] Sensitivity analysis using Grasshopper and CEA Dashboard (1)

Want to do sensitivity analysis (SA) for your urban design variables? This CEA Lesson introduces a method for SA using Grasshopper and CEA Dashboard.

[cea-s-01] From Grasshopper to CEA Dashboard

Want to simulate your design in Grasshopper for its energy performance using CEA? This CEA Lesson introduces a method to link the two.

[cea-a-01] Using CEA Dashboard? CEA Maps help you to get it started.

You have successfully installed CEA on your computer. Now what? The CEA Maps navigate the landing interface to create a new CEA Project and Scenario and to execute CEA Simulations using CEA Dashboard.

[cea-b-02] PV panels and where to place them 1: value for money?

Want the highest possible PV electricity yield? To achieve this, a simple method is to apply PV panels onto every inch of the building envelope. However, obviously it is not always this simple. This CEA Lesson provides you a method to identify the building envelope surfaces for PV installations using CEA.

[cea-b-01] Building-Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) Design Module: Introduction

Now that you have the results of CEA energy potential: photovoltaic (PV) panels simulation, how are you going to use them in your design? This module guides you through a series of topics regarding urban and architectural design with BIPV using CEA.

[cea-v-01] Visualise CEA solar simulation results on building envelopes

Want to visualize your CEA solar-related simulation results on 3D building envelopes like the one below? This lesson guides you through a method using Rhino and Grasshopper.

Singapore’s Mixed-Use Archetypes

Are you modeling mixed-use neighbourhoods using CEA? What is mixed use exactly? The default data acquired from OpenStreetMap (OSM) usually contains only the main use of each building. This datasets provide 163 mixed-use archetypes for Singapore. Each archetype contains the information answering: Which kinds of uses? And how much of each use?

Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA): plot your BIA calendars and visualise your assessment outcome!

Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA): create your BIA crop profiles and planting calendar!

Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA): cite the BIA tool

Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA): assess the BIA potentials on your building envelopes!

How to add own building geometries to a scenario: import of manually created shapefile

Using measured data to calibrate and validate CEA

CEA Plugins - Part 1: Introduction

The City Energy Analyst (CEA) consists of a core set of tools and visualizations of the output of those tools. This article is about extending that set with your own tools and your own visualizations. To do that, you’ll need to write a CEA plugin.

CEA Plugins - Part 2: Anatomy of a CEA plugin

Let’s take a bird’s-eye view of the parts that make up a CEA plugin. We’ll cover the interface expected by the CEA when you define a plugin as well as it’s default implementation: cea.plugin.CeaPlugin .

CEA Plugins - Part 3: Introduction to the CEA plugin template

The easiest was to get started creating your own plugin is to start with the CEA plugin template. In this article, we’ll get you started with your own plugin based on the CEA plugin template on GitHub .

CEA Plugins - Part 4: How to add your own tools to the CEA

Now that you have an overview of the CEA plugin template, let’s dive into some of the files responsible for adding a new tool to the CEA.

CEA Plugins - Part 5: How to add your own plots to the CEA

This article goes into the details of the plots.yml file used in CEA plugins.

CEA Plugins - Part 6: Publish your plugin and claim your T-Shirt

You’ve coded up your CEA plugin - now it’s time to add it to the CEA and share it with the rest of the world!

Grasshopper-CEA Part 5: Estimate solar energy potential using CEA in Rhino 6

Grasshopper-CEA Part 4: Energy demand forecast using CEA in Rhino 6

Working with CEA Databases - Part 1

Working with CEA Databases - Part 2

Working with CEA Databases - Part 3

CEA Workflow - how to automate simulations

Grasshopper-CEA Part 3: Exporting GH geometries to shapefile

Using the CEA API in Jupyter notebooks as an additional interface for advanced data manipulation

Modeling building occupants in CEA – Part 3: Modeling different buildings with the same occupancy type

Modeling building occupants in CEA – Part 1: Deterministic occupant model

Modeling building occupants in CEA – Part 2: Stochastic occupant model

Getting started with your own project

Grasshopper-CEA Part 2: Running CEA commands in Grasshopper

How to install the CEA on Windows - part 1

How to install the CEA on Windows - part 2

Grasshopper-CEA Part 1: Creating input files in .dbf format

Speeding up geospatial data collection with CEA: Part 3/3

This is the final part of a series of posts dedicated to describe the Data Management tools of CEA. Back in Part 1 , I described how to gather geospatial data about technology and economics with the Data Helper tool. Then, in Part 2 , I described how to gather geometry data about buildings and their terrain with the District Helper tool and the Terrain Helper tool.

Speeding up geospatial data collection with CEA: Part 2/3

This article is Part 2 of a series of posts dedicated to describe the Data Management tools of CEA. Back in Part 1 , I described how to gather technical and economic data for the are of your interest with the Data Helper tool.

Speeding up geospatial data collection with CEA: Part 1/3

What if we could reduce the collection time of geospatial data from one year to a matter of a few days? In this 3 blog series, I discuss a series of tools capable of collecting geo-referenced data about the built environment automatically. Start saving time with the free and open source Data Management tools of the City Energy Analyst (CEA).