The Enscape Impact key features include:

• Real-time Energy Modeling: Effortlessly calculate and benchmark key performance metrics, such as peak loads & total carbon emission. See the data manifested within the render, making it easier to comprehend and communicate the impact of design decisions.

• Integrated Workflow: Perform analysis directly within the architectural workflow to inform sustainable designs early in the process. As with the core Enscape products, the add-on is integrated with Archicad, Revit, Vectorworks, SketchUp and Rhino.

• Dials panel: Easy-to-read charts and diagrams intuitively display how geometry adjustments impact building performance. These comprehensive tooltips provide easy-to-understand guidance for beginners in building performance concepts.

Then and now: optimized and unified workflow reduces costs and time

The unified energy analysis and visualization workflow is not only important for the architects, but also for the engineers working on a project, as it significantly cuts down cost and time required to bring a poorly performing project back into compliance.

“Previously, the design process was separated into architects using BIM for design, while engineers conducted performance analysis separately in software like IES offers,” said Ruth Kerrigan, chief operating officer, IES. “This led to duplicated visualization efforts and frequent misalignment between design intent and analytical models. Thus, the loop of recreating and aligning took long, and engineers’ reports were often too technical for clients and architects.”

Enscape Impact combines all of these steps in one tool and shortens the feedback loop. The real-time, data-based feedback on the building performance leads to informed design decisions early in the process. This minimizes the risk of suboptimal designs that engineers later need to modify, which then causes delays and increased costs.

Optimized assets thanks to AI Enhancer

Enscape 4.1. also includes the Chaos AI Enhancer, which allows the design community to use AI to elevate the visuals and export better-looking assets — such as people and vegetation — straight from Enscape. The AI engine solution identifies the correct pixel selection, ensuring better results compared to other AI-generated images.

Enscape creates its assets in-house, with a focus on the efficient use of polygons to ensure high performance. Users can therefore place multiple assets without loss in performance.

These AI-optimized, realistic assets are crucial to create vibrant scenes that help clients understand the design intent faster. Trees, flowers, people and more not only add emotions, but are important to highlight perspectives and spatiality.

Artistic visual modes

The artistic visual modes in Enscape 4.1 add the ability to create images simulating pencil or watercolor drawings, thus highlighting the architect’s design intent in a completely new and unique way. Users can now create captivating presentations while reducing unnecessary distractions for the clients. These new visual styles are available for screenshots, batch rendering and video exports.

Additional features include:

• Colored shadows for artificial light sources: Colored glass and colored semi-transparent furniture now emit colored shadows when struck by artificial light or sunlight. Decoration objects will also leave a colored impression.
  
• Colored sun shadows update: Users can now add textures to the glass material (by uploading them), and the drop shadows will reflect those texture patterns. The fog setting has more accurate coloration at sunrise and sunset, meaning the distinctive orange hue is consistently represented, regardless of the quality setting used. In high and ultra settings, the fidelity of fog shadows is improved, and colored shadows interact with fog realistically.
  
• Integrated Graphics Native Renderer: Enscape 4.1 can be used on Windows computers with Intel and AMD CPUs (a separate, dedicated GPU is not needed).
  
• Chaos Cloud: Create virtual tours from panoramas and renders, customize hotspots, add highlights to guide users and showcase design options, assign floor plans and enjoy tour navigation assistance with a minimap, Chaos Cloud is currently free to use, but users would need to transfer their content there, which requires a Chaos account login. A direct link for uploading exports directly to Chaos Cloud will be available with the Enscape 4.1.1 release.

Pricing and availability
Between August and October 2024, all Enscape license holders will have access to the Enscape Impact beta. The beta will also be included as part of the free Enscape trial.

For more information, please visit chaos.com and iesve.com.