ThermoRender, an outdoor thermal environment design tool introduced in 2006, succeeded in raising awareness about outdoor design accounting for the thermal environment. As global warming becomes a more pressing concern, the developer updated this tool, in the belief that people must make a difference through the architectural CAD programs used by many engineers. ThermoRender3 Pro enables simulation of outdoor thermal environments and provides functions for calculating building energy consumption, in a highly original design tool for thermal environments. At the design stage, the tool can be used for close investigation of building paint and surface temperature (possible factors for the heat-island effect) as well as building energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

As a tool in 3D CAD workflows that can counteract the heat-island effect in buildings and cities, ThermoRender was starting to gain recognition among many engineers. We developed the new version to expand this tool, making it double as a means to curb global warming. In addition to enabling estimates about outdoor thermal environments, the tool incorporates functions to estimate building energy consumption and CO2 emissions. We hope the tool makes a difference in the development of eco-friendly cities and societies with a smaller carbon footprint.

As the issue of global warming increases in severity, one of the most important factors in constructing cities and buildings planning are design that minimizes the burden on the global environment. It goes without saying that the question of how design is involved in the societal issues of global warming due to CO2 emission and urban heat islands is one of the most important issues facing the design world. ThermoRender 3 is an indoor-outdoor integrated thermal environment simulation tool for the design of everything from houses to cities. It has functions for computing the outdoor thermal environment and indoor thermal load. It is a superb program, not only for its timeliness, but also for its interface design.