I aim to make the lighting calculation but using Blender. I have found several addons and tutorials but none of them have the potential and precision of Relux or Dialux for this analysis.
You might want to try the VI Suite developed by Ryan Southall which is an open-source Radiance-based plugin for Blender. More on it here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319700974 . You can also find several few video tutorials on Ryan's youtube channel that cover the basics as well as some advanced features. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi8w9DML_uxvcYyQoQP6aLg/playlists
Hi Javier, all convenience starts with limiting your options. Frontends reduce complexity by hiding features that they assume are not needed. So, to evaluate the potential and precision of frontends, please provide some info on what you require, what you aim to do with with your simulations. Most tools for quantitative lighting simulaiton and analysis are based on Radiance, althouth recently few other renderers started to aim at providing results in meaningful units, too. Are you looking into some specific feature about artificial lighting, which is less in the focus of most Radiance-related tools?
Sarith already mentioned vi-suite, a wonderful Blender solution to compute daylight metrics together with other aspects of building performance. Similarly, ODS Studio integrates several simulation engines (EnergyPlus and OpenFoam besides Radiance) within Blender. If you want to keep all control and maximum flexibility, the Blender exporter brad or even converting OBJ meshes allow you just to get your models into Radiance world, but leaves you with the simulation and analysis (which is supported by a bunch of command-line tools coming with Radiance). The multi-exporter lends itself to compare the result of different
simulation engines, including Radiance, but also pbrt and others. You may also try other free renderers, e.g. luxcore, with the BlendLuxCore addon, supporting irradiance calculations and basic color-mapping to visualize results from within Blender.
ODS Studio: https://www.ods-engineering.com/tools/ods-studio
vi-Suite (just updated to v.0.6): https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/visuite/2019/11/06/vi-suite-v0-6-update
Blender exporter brad: https://github.com/pisuke/brad
Multi-Exporter: https://bitbucket.org/wahn/blender-add-ons/src/master
BlendLuxCore: https://blender-addons.org/blendluxcore-addon/
Hello Javier,
you mention Relux or Dialux so probably you are interested in electric lighting simulation. These software can also perform daylight simulation, though for it more reliable software as Radiance is recommended. The previous answers by Sarith and Lars Oliver cover very well the potentialities of integrating Blender and lighting software. I can just recommend the tools of ODS Engineering because I have experience to work with them though in other design environment. Nonetheless I am not sure if the lighting simulation performed with ODS tools in Blender is only for daylight or it includes also electric lighting.
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