Is Energos dead ???

[Patrick Fritsch]

Is there any future development planned for Energos?

Currently I see a lack of;

• Usage documentation explaining each input parameter.
• Advanced training webinars or Service select training.
• Real world compliance certification with any Environmental Design standards (Even the ones available in the dropdown menu are not certified)
• Here in British Columbia Canada, we now have the BC Step Code https://energystepcode.ca/about/ that we need to comply to. So Energos would need to have been tested with ANSI/ASHRAE 140 "Evaluation of Building Energy Analysis Computer Programs".

 

Kiddy up VW! This ball of mud is melting as it spins!

Edited August 22, 2019 by Patrick Fritsch

[TomKen]

I'm also in BC.  I looked was looking at Energos but couldn't figure out how I could translate that information into something useful like ashrae, or NECB. 

[filip]

In the Netherlands the results of energos and even the calculated Rc from a slap or a wall is not accepted for getting a building permit, that makes VW not very professional.

[E|FA]

1 hour ago, MistShard said:

Here in California it’s the same situation. Energos can give some rough insights, but since it’s not validated for Title 24 compliance, it’s not really useful once you get into the permitting process. At that point you still need to run everything through certified software

Ditto in Seattle.  I think Energos is one of those VW ideas that they think will help sell the product, put a lot of development and marketing effort into the initial release, and then abandon it as a legacy feature before it becomes a truly useful tool.  It stays on the features list for marketing, but it isn't very useful for most users.  I'm waiting to see if the AI rendering follows a similar path.  I get the feeling that the mood boards currently in the road map will suffer a similar fate.  What all of these have in common is that there are good options outside of VW to accomplish these tasks.  There's very little value added to incorporate them in VW unless they are fully developed and maintained.

Edited September 3 by E|FA

[Vlado]

You are all bring up a good point actually. We are currently looking into ways to make it current.

[E|FA]

The prima

33 minutes ago, Vlado said:

We are currently looking into ways to make it current

It looks like all of the comments are requesting to have it meet compliance for building permit review.

[Tom W.]

7 hours ago, MistShard said:

it feels more like a “concept tool” than something you can actually rely on for compliance.

 

In fairness, as far as I know that was all it was ever advertised as: a way to monitor the energy performance of your model in real time + assist you making design choices based on how the energy rating is affected. Instead of having to wait until the end of the process + only learning once you've had it assessed externally. Not that I've ever used it...

 

In the UK we have EPCs + SAP calculations + both are carried out by accredited assessors using (I believe) dedicated software. I'm not sure how realistic it would be to expect to carry this out within VW... And how many different systems are there going to be globally?

[filip]

Have a look at the attached documents, this is how energos should work.

This company is building a 3d model of the design and than the program can play with the imput

to the point that the design is accepted by the government and the designer.

And they don't even consider using the 3d VW model!

 

uniec3_2025-10316-Dierenkliniek_2025-08-01_104158.pdf uniec3_2025-10316-Wonen_2025-08-01_104205.pdf

[Tom W.]

1 hour ago, filip said:

Have a look at the attached documents, this is how energos should work.

This company is building a 3d model of the design and than the program can play with the imput

to the point that the design is accepted by the government and the designer.

And they don't even consider using the 3d VW model!

 

uniec3_2025-10316-Dierenkliniek_2025-08-01_104158.pdf 212.65 kB · 1 download uniec3_2025-10316-Wonen_2025-08-01_104205.pdf 377.51 kB · 0 downloads

 

Do you mean Energos should be infinitely configurable so that it can produce whatever output is required wherever you are in the world? I think that might be quite a tall order.

[filip]

It would make the work of an architect more professional, and that counts for VW as well.

[FranAJA]

In the UK, energos is completely useless.

[filip]

This is something that makes me wonder, is VW worth the investment.

For me designing is not just for fun. Although I realy like my profession.

 

What do you people think?

[E|FA]

Despite its flaws, I’ve used VW to run a profitable business for 26 years. In terms of Energos, I’m curious how many people actually use it for real work.  It’s not something I use but maybe many people do.  For most of my projects I can meet or beat proscriptive energy codes without calcs, and if I do need calcs for compliance I work with a consultant. 

[Jeff Prince]

15 minutes ago, E|FA said:

For most of my projects I can meet or beat proscriptive energy codes without calcs, and if I do need calcs for compliance I work with a consultant. 

This is the mark of a true professional.

I believe Energos (like AI render, AutoTurn integration, irrigation tools, etc) should be filed under “shiny objects and eye candy” in terms of feature set, it’s marketing bait to sell product.

[FranAJA]

1 hour ago, E|FA said:

Despite its flaws, I’ve used VW to run a profitable business for 26 years. In terms of Energos, I’m curious how many people actually use it for real work.  It’s not something I use but maybe many people do.  For most of my projects I can meet or beat proscriptive energy codes without calcs, and if I do need calcs for compliance I work with a consultant. 

I used Revit for more than 15 years before moving to Vectorworks. I can say that VW has all the tools to be genuinely competitive with Revit (and I honestly appreciated VW more than Revit), but:

VW needs significant improvements in stability when handling large projects and multiple references.

VW needs to make major advances in MEP and structural design, which is essentially why Revit is used (as architects dislike Revit but are forced to use it because of the consultants).

VW requires substantial work on performance in worksharing and graphic acceleration.

VW needs improvements to many objects such as walls (tapered, stacked, slanted), roofs, drainage slabs, and so on.

What makes VW powerful are its plug-in objects, which save you from having to create families one by one and are fairly universal.

However, while these small plug-ins (as energos, and other little things) are nice to have, they are of limited use ina  rral professional scenario. The focus should instead be on improving and investing effort into the core architectural, MEP, and structural tools.

 

[zoomer]

1 hour ago, FranAJA said:

VW requires substantial work on .... and graphic acceleration.

 

For me on Mac, VW is one of the best in 3D Viewports.

Seems to be on par with all my 3D Mesh Apps.

[Jeff Prince]

45 minutes ago, FranAJA said:

which is essentially why Revit is used (as architects dislike Revit but are forced to use it because of the consultants).

Agree with everything you have said except for this and families.  Almost all of the modern architects I work with actually like Revit compared to the old way of doing things.  In my experience as a consultant, we have been forced to move to Revit due to Architects, not the way you described.

Families are one of the most powerful aspects of Revit and work very well compared to the VWX approach to parametric objects.  To be fair, both programs have their issues.

[filip]

Well I am a happy VW user and energos can give you some indication of the performance and after that you just need other professionals.

But I am not really content with this. When I first designed a building in 1985 I was much more the buildingmaster and now in 2025 I need a compleet army of very expensive consultants, producing hard to understand papers, which have almost nothing to do with building a building.

And somehow I still have the responsebility to integrate of the different rapports. VW could be a tool to be more in charge!

[FranAJA]

I have done so many families for my previous company. 
Just a decent door (for professional use) can have almost 500 parameters between reporting and dimensions and should be done really, really well to avoid unconstrainted geometries.
Keeping a share parameters list for all the doors types can be also a full time job. 
This is on of the limit of revit for architects for high budget projects. 
Revit is becoming little by little the standard, which should not be.
But anyway I am going off topic. 

 

Edited September 28 by FranAJA