IES VE-Ware Add-Ons for SketchUp

Posted live from Greenbuild.

Yesterday, the president of Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), Don McLean, stopped by our booth at Greenbuild to run through the features of his company's Virtual Environment energy and carbon footprint simulation tool for SketchUp and Revit. The new version of the software already works with the new features in SketchUp 7.

While this was going on, an attendee whose office uses SketchUp for preliminary design and Revit for the hard stuff (an increasingly common configuration) happened by, and was surprised to find out the depth of information this software pulls out of SketchUp models. It's pretty amazing. There's the free version, which has limited capabilities, and purchasable modules for energy, lighting & daylighting, solar, value & cost, egress, mechanical, and more — or the whole schmear is available in a suite.

Today Don and I had an unscheduled quick bite of lunch together up in the food court. Faced with the prospect of trying to explain his product here, I asked him to do it for me — using as few words as possible while providing the most meaning. He spoke extemporaneously while I scribbled: "It enables SketchUp users to incorporate more of their model in more effective ways into the analysis process."

And then we talked about Greenbuild over the years, the rising trend of greenwash, the increasing difficulties that professionals new to green have in cutting through the crap, and European sitcoms.

UPDATE: Check out the following from the Google SketchUp blog — if you're here in Boston, or know somebody who is, this could be a sweet thing:

Guess who's going to Greenbuild 2008?

Well, not us, but our friends at IES are! We wanted to let you know because they are offering Google SketchUp Pro customers a discount on their new Architectural Suite and Architectural Suite Plus software. Here's the deal: If you go to the Greenbuild Expo in Boston next week, visit the IES Booth (#1447) and you'll receive $250 off their software using the promo code GB08. This offer is also available on their website. If you're going to the conference to learn about building green, you may as well save some green while you're there.