Christian FreudeORCID iD, David HahnORCID iD, Florian Rist, Lukas LippORCID iD, Michael WimmerORCID iD
Precomputed radiative heat transport for efficient thermal simulation
Computer Graphics Forum, 42(7):e14957, November 2023. [paper]

Information

Abstract

Architectural design and urban planning are complex design tasks. Predicting the thermal impact of design choices at interactive rates enhances the ability of designers to improve energy efficiency and avoid problematic heat islands while maintaining design quality. We show how to use and adapt methods from computer graphics to efficiently simulate heat transfer via thermal radiation, thereby improving user guidance in the early design phase of large-scale construction projects and helping to increase energy efficiency and outdoor comfort. Our method combines a hardware-accelerated photon tracing approach with a carefully selected finite element discretization, inspired by precomputed radiance transfer. This combination allows us to precompute a radiative transport operator, which we then use to rapidly solve either steady-state or transient heat transport throughout the entire scene. Our formulation integrates time-dependent solar irradiation data without requiring changes in the transport operator, allowing us to quickly analyze many different scenarios such as common weather patterns, monthly or yearly averages, or transient simulations spanning multiple days or weeks. We show how our approach can be used for interactive design workflows such as city planning via fast feedback in the early design phase.

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BibTeX

@article{freude-2023-prh,
  title =      "Precomputed radiative heat transport for efficient thermal
               simulation",
  author =     "Christian Freude and David Hahn and Florian Rist and Lukas
               Lipp and Michael Wimmer",
  year =       "2023",
  abstract =   "Architectural design and urban planning are complex design
               tasks. Predicting the thermal impact of design choices at
               interactive rates enhances the ability of designers to
               improve energy efficiency and avoid problematic heat islands
               while maintaining design quality. We show how to use and
               adapt methods from computer graphics to efficiently simulate
               heat transfer via thermal radiation, thereby improving user
               guidance in the early design phase of large-scale
               construction projects and helping to increase energy
               efficiency and outdoor comfort. Our method combines a
               hardware-accelerated photon tracing approach with a
               carefully selected finite element discretization, inspired
               by precomputed radiance transfer. This combination allows us
               to precompute a radiative transport operator, which we then
               use to rapidly solve either steady-state or transient heat
               transport throughout the entire scene. Our formulation
               integrates time-dependent solar irradiation data without
               requiring changes in the transport operator, allowing us to
               quickly analyze many different scenarios such as common
               weather patterns, monthly or yearly averages, or transient
               simulations spanning multiple days or weeks. We show how our
               approach can be used for interactive design workflows such
               as city planning via fast feedback in the early design
               phase.",
  month =      nov,
  journal =    "Computer Graphics Forum",
  volume =     "42",
  number =     "7",
  articleno =  "e14957",
  issn =       "1467-8659",
  doi =        "10.1111/cgf.14957",
  pages =      "14",
  publisher =  "WILEY",
  keywords =   "thermal radiation, rendering, computer graphics",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2023/freude-2023-prh/",
}