Optical design software for daylighting.

Solar and Daylighting Optical Design Software

Photopia^™ is the perfect optical design software for your solar and daylighting optical design projects. Photopia is used for designing complex daylighting systems, including light shelves, skylights, tubular daylight devices, solar tracking skylights and a range of other devices. Photopia has also been used in solar applications, including PV concentrators and Stirling engine concentrators.

Photopia's library contains a wide range of materials commonly used in daylight devices as well as source models for the standard CIE sky conditions, making it easy to determine your device's performance for any time of the year for any location.

Photopia is a plug-in for both SOLIDWORKS^® and Rhino^®. If you are not using SOLIDWORKS, then Photopia for Rhino is the best option since it includes a full seat of Rhino and allows you to work with IGES or STEP CAD models from any other program, including CATIA^®, SOLIDWORKS^®, AutoCAD^®, Creo Parametricngineer CREO^®, SolidEdge^®, and Inventor^®.

Read more details about Daylighting Simulation in Photopia.

Solar

✔ Solar simulator using reflector optics.

✔ PV concentrator reflector and lenses.

✔ Stirling engine concentrator reflector.

Daylighting

✔ Lightshelf performance study.

✔ Simulation of annual performance data.

✔ Tubular daylight devices.

✔ Traditional skylight devices.

Solar Energy

Su, Y; Pei, G; Riffat, S; Huang, H (March 2012). "A Novel Lens-Walled Compound Parabolic Concentrator for Photovolatic Applications". ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering 134 (2): 7. doi:10.1115/1.4005757. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Su, Y; Riffat, S; Pei, G (October 2012). "Comparative study on annual solar energy collection of a novel lens-walled compound parabolic concentrator (lens-walled CPC)". Sustainable Cities and Society 4: 35–40. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Daylighting

Luz, Bruna (2014). "Daylighting distribution from output of light pipes". Thesis presented to the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning University of São Paulo to obtain the doctor title Architecture and urbanism Concentration area: Technology Architecture.. Retrieved 29 June 2016

Linhart, F; Wittkopf, SK; Munch, M; Scartezzini, JL (August 20, 2009). "Recent research on anidolic daylighting systems: highly reflective coating materials and chronobiological properties". Proc. SPIE 7423, Nonimaging Optics: Efficient Design for Illumination and Solar Concentration VI, 74230K. Nonimaging Optics: Efficient Design for Illumination and Solar Concentration VI 7423: 74230K. Bibcode:2009SPIE.7423E..0KL. doi:10.1117/12.826136. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Alotto, FD; Linhart, F; Scartezzini, JL (September 2009). "CIE Standard Skies in Switzerland: Relative Occurrence and Impact on Daylighting System Performance". Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Laussane. pp. 237–242. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Tsangrassoulis, A; Machairas, V; Azarli, C (August 2009). "Simplified Design of a Specular Slat Profile Curve Using 2D Ray Tracing and Genetic Algorithms.". Proceedings of BS2013: 13th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (Chambery France). Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Scartezzini, JL; Linhart, F (October 2009). "Green Lighting: Energy-Efficiency Integrated Lighting Systems". Swiss Federal Office of Energy. p. 107. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Linhart, F; Wittkopf, SK; Scartezzini, JL (13 August 2009). "Splitting up anidolic daylighting systems". SPIE Newsroom. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Kostro, A; Schuler, A (2009). "Integrated Multifunctional Glazing For Dynamical Daylighting." (Annual Report 2009). Swiss Federal Office of Energy. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Wittkopf, S; Grobe, LO; Geisler-Moroder, D; Compagnon, R; Kampf, J; Linhart, F; Scartezzini, JL (June 2010). "Ray tracing study for non-imaging daylight collectors". Solar Energy 84 (6): 986–996. Bibcode:2010SoEn...84..986W. doi:10.1016/j.solener.2010.03.008. 

Digert, N; Fernandes, L (Feb 2008). "PAC Show and Tell: Project 2: Improved Daylighting Performance of Tubular Daylighting". PIER. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

New Buildings Institute (March 2013). "Enhanced Skylight Modeling and Validation". New Buildings Institute. Retrieved 14 October 2014. 

Demo

The first step to evaluating if Photopia is a good fit for your company is to schedule an online demonstration where one of our expert optical engineers will discuss your projects and give you a walkthrough of the software.

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Trial Version

After the online demo, we're happy to provide a 2 week trial license so that you can use the software on your own projects or show it to others in your office.

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Purchase

We sell direct and through a network of international representatives.

In order to provide a quote please contact us and we'll either provide one or put you in contact with the correct representative.

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