Investigating solar envelope by making use of point clouds data

Dealing with solar envelope analysis in architectural design becomes crucial feature because it gives an impact to the building performance analysis in the real environment. Various simulation tools were used by architects play a significant role in determining the design process. However, these tools were not yet confirming the expected performance of the future building design. Manual modeling platform and actual information processing are delivering the main issue on the design operation. This analysis leads to the potential application of point cloud as design medium in architectural domain. This paper furthermore investigates a comparative analysis between point cloud data model-based and the conventional modeling. Some challenging tasks are discussed in related with the point cloud processing in the design framework. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a novel design method for exploring the solar envelope simulation as a part of conceptual design analysis