Where infrared.city fits
3,204,804 simulations run on Infrared Core (as of 29 Oct 2026).
infrared.city runs 12 models from one engine, Infrared Core, among them wind, wind comfort, sun, daylight, radiant heat and felt heat (UTCI). It works on real 3D building and terrain meshes, in a browser app, through an API and SDK, and in plugins for Grasshopper, QGIS and ArcGIS. Felt heat for 1 km² takes about 5 s once the geometry is uploaded, and 400 km² took 44 s as four 100 km² runs in parallel. Run times are not like for like across tools: area, grid, simulated hours and physics differ. Sun, sky and radiant heat come from ray tracing. Wind comes from an AI model trained on CFD results, not from a CFD run for each request.
- You need outdoor wind comfort and felt heat for streets, squares and whole districts.
- You need results for many options, through an API, a browser or plugins.
- You need an hourly city layer for a digital twin.
Use both
Use ClimateStudio inside the building: daylight and energy. Use infrared.city for the street, the block and the city around it: wind comfort, felt heat and sun. With the infrared.city Grasshopper plugin, both run in one Rhino workflow.
Facts side by side
| infrared.city | ClimateStudio | |
|---|---|---|
| Method | Ray tracing for sun, sky and radiant heat; wind from an AI model trained on CFD results (no CFD run per request) | Radiance (daylight, path tracing) and EnergyPlus (energy) |
| Inputs | Real 3D building and terrain meshes, weather data; trees and ground materials for heat | Rhino and Grasshopper models, weather files |
| Runs as | Cloud: browser app, API and SDK, plugins | Plugin for Rhino 6, 7 and 8, on your computer |
| Licence and pricing | Tokens: free start with 900 tokens, plans from €240 a year | Commercial and educational licences |
The infrared.city values repeat the full comparison. Each value for ClimateStudio comes from the sources below.
Sources
- Solemma: ClimateStudio , accessed 30 Oct 2026.