Tech News
22nd June 2018
We are happy to announce the second part of the online course Decoding Urban Nature: Microclimate Analysis beyond Wind and Sun on Mon, 25th June, 19:30 CET. After talking about the fundamentals of microclimate and the interactions between local design and thermal comfort, the second part will show a case study and provides a hands-on the Envi-met software system.
More info + preview—> https://bit.ly/2JIwbUd
18th June 2018
We are happy to announce a new online course with Prof. Michael Bruse, Director Innovations & Products and main designer of the ENVI_MET software.
Decoding Urban Nature: Microclimate Analysis beyond Wind and Sun
In the complex world of outdoor environments, climate parameters, vegetation, surfaces and structures constantly interact with each other. Due to the resulting interdependencies, these elements cannot be seen isolated. All interacting elements must be analysed even if only a single climatological aspect such as air temperature is required. This is possible using Envi-Met.
More info + preview—> https://bit.ly/2JIwbUd
29th May 2018
New ENVI-met V4.3.2 is available today
We are thrilled to announce our new summer release of ENVI-met with a lot of new developments and improvements. For the first time, the new release features a 64bit version of SPACES, which enables the processing of large model areas in high resolution. In addition, miscellaneous bug fixes have been implemented. At this point we would like to thank you for your valuable contributions and your feedback to achieve this improvement!
As usual, ENVI-met users can obtain the summer release by downloading the newest version from our website.
Just as a teaser: The next winter release will feature ENVI-met’s newest tool – MONDE. This modelling tool makes it possible to import vector based data sets, e.g. from OpenStreetMap, to ENVI-met model areas. Be part in this exciting development process and become our exclusive beta user of MONDE and assist our developers to improve this new tool. Fill out our attached application form and we will get back to you after the evaluation of all applicants.
Furthermore – as a lot of you have requested – ENVI-met will even be able to simulate façade greening, which is becoming more and more important in urban areas. Green façades have the ability to improve air quality and the microclimate in general, which is why our developers are eager to implement this new vegetation type as soon as possible.
If you’re not a satisfied user already, have a look at our homepage and try our basic version, which contains the most important tools for free. Start your first microclimate simulation right now!
9th April 2018
In a recently published peer-reviewed paper in Landscape and Urban Planning (Simon et al. 2018) of one of our team members, the newest version of the microclimate model ENVI-met was compared against measured data in a case study in Mainz, Germany.
Vegetation plays a vital role in urban environments: Aside from the aesthetic benefits, trees and other vegetation help mitigate the effects of the urban heat island by increasing the latent heatflux through evapotranspiration and decreasing the sensible heatflux through shading, resulting in lower air temperatures.
However, both the effect of vegetation on microclimate and the plants’ vitality need to be assessed to support and quantify the effects of such strategies. One way to assess the interactions between vegetation and the urban environment is through microclimate models that can simulate the effects of vegetation onto the urban microclimate as well as effects of urban environments onto vegetation. To provide reliable estimates microclimate models need to be parameterized based on empirically obtained data.
In this paper a comparison of modeled transpiration rates and leaf temperatures of the leading microclimate model, ENVI-met V4, with in-situ measured stem sap flow and leaf temperatures of two different trees in an urban courtyard was performed. The vegetation model of ENVI-met is evaluated considering four synoptic situations including varying cloud covers ranging from fully cloudy to clear sky. The comparison of simulation results with empirical data reveals a high agreement. The model is capable of capturing the magnitude as well as short-term variations in transpiration caused by microclimatic changes. Modeled and observed diurnal tree transpiration and leaf temperature showed good agreement. These findings indicate that ENVI-met is capable of simulating transpiration rates and leaf temperatures of trees in complex urban environments.
19th March 2018
New Research paper: Validating the transpiration rate and leaf temperature of urban trees in ENVI-met
Green infrastructure is one of the key tools to mitigate the negative impacts of urban heat stress and to create sustainable living conditions.
Besides the casting of shade, the cooling effect of water transpiration from the leafs is the key feature that allows trees to modify the microclimate. Hence, modelling the correct tree transpiration rate is crucial if we want to asses the impact of trees on the local climate. Moreover, adequate soil water supply and leaf transpiration is necessary for all living vegetation to keep the leaf temperature below critical values that might lead to a damage of the foliage cells.
A paper just published by Helge Simon et al. in Landscape and Urban Planning, investigates the transpiration rate and leaf temperature of urban trees modelled by ENVI-met and compares it to real-site measurements under various meteorological conditions.
We are happy to share this paper with you for free for a limited time. Please follow the link below to get your personal copy:
Free Link (valid until May 02, 2018): https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1WioHcUG5Amqm
24th November 2017
We are thrilled to announce the winter release of ENVI-met on Friday, ready to run on your desktops and servers. This new release is a game-changer for our company, and we think you’re going to be very pleased with the innovations that will come with it.
With Version 4.3 (Winter 1718) a new chapter of ENVI_MET modelling will be opened with three new features that go hand-in-hand and will allow a fast an flexible computing of large areas.
64 Bit Support: ENVI_MET switches the main model and main application to 64 Bit. This allows to make full usage of the computer memory and is a necessary condition to compute large areas
Free-Sized Model Domains: Starting with V4.3 there are no longer predefined maximum model sizes such as 150×150 or 250×250. The memory is allocated dynamically to fit the selected model area size and is only limited by the computer resources available.
Parallel Computing: To allow larger model areas and also to speed up the calculation process in general, many routines of ENVI_MET are now parallelized to support multiple CPU cores. As parallel computing on standard computers is a relatively new field, we will continue to improve and extend the parallel routines in upcoming versions of ENVI_MET.
Connecting with the larger world: Nesting ENVI_MET in the WRF mesoscale model (TKR)
Currently a development of a coupling between the mesoscale Weather and Research Forecast Model (WRF) and ENVI_MET is in progress. This new downscaling method will allow ENVI_MET simulations to be driven by meteorological output data of WRF real data cases.
By completing this task a link will be established connecting climatic processes on the mesoscale and microscale level. High range processes influenced by mountains, lakes or forests will provide the input data for high resolution simulations with ENVI_MET. WRF seems to be the perfect driver for this, representing itself as state-of-the-art model with more than 20,000 users worldwide simulating weather forecasts as well as research projects.
15th May 2017
Regarding the energy balance of the interior of a building, our new editor MONDE assigns every building a number, which allows the adaption of the material properties for the whole building. A more detailed digitalization of the project area is possible from now on. Additionally, this enables a more accurate simulation of the air temperature in the inside, which depends on the orientation and the properties of the facades and the available volume of air, due to enclosed adjacent buildings.
1st February 2017
ENVI_MET Monde: The vector-based future of model editing (MBR)
Designing an ENVI_MET model area using the SPACES editor often consumes a large amount of time, especially for huge areas or if different resolutions should be used.
With the option of simulating very large areas from ENVI_MET V4.3, editing the Area Input Files by hand has become not only time consuming but practically impossible. Therefor we are developing a new vector based editor, “ENVI_MET Monde” since two years. The editor support the CAD-like drawing of buildings, vegetation and all other elements of the ENVI_MET Area Input files. In addition, you can import existing data from ESRI Shapefiles, access and import OpenStreet Map data or CAD files.
For the new app, you can easily generate ENVI_MET model areas in any resolution by the mouse click.
More information on ENVI_MET will be available soon.
30th October 2016
ENVI_MET meets Minecraft: Making building model areas collaborative and fun! (HSI)
The game world of the popular game Minecraft has many similarities to our microclimate model ENVI_MET: In both cases the worlds consist out of discrete three-dimensional blocks or, more technical voxels. In both, the game as well as in our microclimate simulation, these blocks can only consist out of a single material (air, building, vegetation, etc.). Minecraft, of course, does not store any physical properties such as volumetric heat capacity or albedo, but the multitude of different Minecraft block types together with a user defined lookup table that defines which Minecraft block type corresponds to an ENVI_MET database item make it possible to convert Minecraft worlds to ENVI_MET model areas. This way you can build your model areas together with your friends while playing Minecraft. Also, there is already a multitude of Minecraft replicas of cities that can be used to import to ENVI_MET.
5th June 2016
We are happy and proud to introduce a new PhD Thesis written by Helge Simon from our lab that has just be defended.
This thesis describes a number of new features introduced in ENVI-met including a wide set of numerical testing and in-situ validations.
The main features included are:
The new 3D plant-as-object model allowing a very realistic simulation of the plants transpiration behaviour
Introduction of a BVOC chemical model allowing to simulate the emission of biogen gases by plants and their impact on the NO-NO2-Ozone reactions (only in the Xpert Version of ENVI-met so far) Evaluation of the new multi-node wall model including validation studies
Coupling of ENVI-met with MUKLIMO_3 of the German Wather Service DWD (continuation of work) The thesis can be found here:https://publications.ub.uni-mainz.de/theses/frontdoor.php?source_opus=100000507
Most of the features included are already part of the new ENVI-met 4 engine.
Our congrats to Helge and enjoy reading!
Best,
Michael Bruse, CDO
ENVI-met | Decoding Urban Nature
9th Oct 2015
ENVI-met V3.1 is no longer provided as download. User support in our forum will kept up for the next 6 months and then will be closed as well. User support and forum for LEONARO 3.x has been closed down- please only use LEONARDO 2014 now.
22nd Augst 2015
A public preview III of ENVI-met V4 is now available (see download page).
23rd Jan 2015
A new public preview of ENVI-met V4 and of the AddOn 2014 solving a number of urgent bugs (see download page) is available.