I tried Sketchup with it?s EnergyPlus plug-in last year, and I didn?t understand how someone can really send a correct description model to EnergyPlus engine.
EnergyPlus is a simulation engine, and it needs a serious graphical interface, with serious thermal descriptions, weather data, lighting and ventilation setups etc etc. that are not part of Sketchup.
VectorWorks works with IFC descriptions from scratch (There is no written tutorials about it?s workflow yet..but), being possible to exporting DOE-2, it would be "natural" to have the possibility to export in gbXML, like the other BIM players did.....to work with "THE" thermal simulation tool like DesignBuilder.
It?s ridiculous after creating my BIM model with VectorWorks, I have to create another BIM model of the same project inside DesignBuilder........ using exported 2D DXF files.
This was standard practice 20 years ago, when I first started using a PC based simulation program called Suncode (using text input), but it?s ridiculous this days with our "Super-Vectorworks-Architect-with-BIM-support"......:-(