Infrared.city is now directly integrated into Revit, enabling you to run climate simulations right from your BIM model. No file exports, no extra steps — simply open the plugin, connect your project, and start testing design options.

In this tutorial, we will walk through the basics of setting up the plugin, loading your project, running analyses, and checking results.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, make sure you have:

• A registered infrared.city account
• Revit installed (version 2024 or higher)
• An active internet connection

New to infrared.city?

If this is your first time using infrared.city, we recommend reading our running your first simulation guide, where we explain how to create a project and run your first simulation.

Step 1: Start Revit

When you first open Revit, you need to log into your infrared.city account. By clicking the Login button in the plugin tab, you will be directed to the web browser to complete the login.

Once the message “Successfully Logged in” appears, you can close the browser and return to Revit to continue.

When you return to Revit, you will see the infrared.city plugin tab.

The first dropdown arrow help you select the project you wish to work on. It shows a list of your existing projects.

Select the project you want to work with, then click Load Geometry. This will bring in the environment you set up on the web app.

You can close and reopen the panel anytime from the top ribbon.

TIP: If your project is not yet created, use the Create New Project button. You will be directed to the web app to set location and add analyses. After that, you can continue working in Revit — adding new analyses, uploading design geometries, or removing existing ones.

Step 2. Loading Your Project

After selecting your project and loading the geometry, click Load Project.

A notification will then confirm that the setup was successful, displaying details such as the number of meshes and vegetation objects that have been imported into Revit.

Once the project is loaded, the plugin interface will display:

• The project name, which can be edited directly in the web app
• The project location as defined during setup
• A list of analyses currently associated with the project

By clicking on the user initial in the upper-right corner of the plugin tab, you can return to the User Login screen and switch to another project. Before doing so, make sure to delete any buildings from the previous project. Otherwise, the geometries from the newly opened project may overlap with those from the old one.

Step 3. Components Overview

The Revit plugin provides several tools enabling you to manage your projects, manage your analyses and run simulations.

Insert Analysis Frame

The Insert Analysis Frame component establishes a ground reference plane that defines the boundaries of your simulation area. This frame is necessary for correctly aligning and displaying the simulation results within Revit. Without inserting the frame, the analysis meshes cannot be visualized in the model space.

Update Project Geometry

You will need to update parts of your project before launching a new analysis. For instance, when you add a new geometry, this can be done by using the Update Project component so the system understands the new model state.

Keep in mind that the Update Project component pushes your changes to the cloud, updating the root project. As a result, the version you originally loaded may differ from the updated state once the changes are applied.

Run All Analysis

The Run All Analysis function transmits the current state of your project to the infrared.city platform, where the selected simulations are executed. Once completed, the results are synchronized back to your Revit environment for visualization and further evaluation.

• Cached → Results already exist in the database, fetched directly.
• Latest → Results are in memory, no new request needed.
• Pending → Simulation not yet run.

Once the status changes to Latest, click the analysis card to visualize results in Revit.

Save Project Snapshot

The Save Project Snapshot function records the current state of your project, including its geometry and simulation results. These snapshots are stored in the cloud and can later be accessed through the Snapshots tab on the web app. This feature makes it easy to document design iterations, track progress over time, and compare different design options side by side.

Back to Project

Returns to the main project view.

Refresh Active Project

This function synchronizes your Revit session with the latest updates from the web app. This ensures that any changes made outside of Revit—such as newly added geometries, updated parameters, or additional analyses—are immediately reflected in your active project, keeping both environments fully aligned.

Load Context Geometry

This imports the surrounding site environment associated with your project. This helps provide a more complete context for your simulations, including nearby buildings and vegetation features. You can choose to load the context either at the beginning of your workflow or later, depending on when it becomes relevant for your analysis.

Add New Analysis

While you can easily run the analyses already saved in your web-created projects, you can also use the tools in this tab to modify or expand your set of analyses at any time without switching back to the web app. This component opens a dialog to add a new simulation type. Each analysis brings its own set of parameters (e.g., for Pedestrian Wind Comfort, you select comfort criteria, season, and time block).

Step 4. Adding and Managing Analyses

When you create a new analysis (for example, a wind speed study with a direction of 300°), it will be displayed as a new card in the plugin interface.

While the setup is in progress, a “Please wait” message appears in the lower corner of the window, indicating that the system is awaiting your input before proceeding.

Each analysis card displays its corresponding parameters, allowing you to review the predefined settings and make adjustments as needed. This ensures that every simulation can be tailored to the specific requirements of your project before it is executed.

Any analyses you add will initially appear with the status Pending, indicating that the simulation has not yet been executed and is waiting to be run.

NOTE: You will see indicators showing the status of each analysis: Cached means the results already exist in the database and are simply retrieved when requested. Latest indicates that the results are already stored in memory, so no additional request is required. Pending shows that the simulation has not been executed yet and is waiting to be run.

Remember: To visualize the results in Revit, you must first insert an Analysis Frame. In addition, set the Revit visual style to Textured or Realistic so that the simulation mesh is properly displayed.

Step 5. Updating Geometries

You can modify your project at any stage by deleting existing geometry or adding new design elements directly in Revit. These changes are synchronized with the web app once you update the project, ensuring that both environments remain consistent.

When geometry is removed in Revit (for example, deleting building blocks), you need to click Update Project Geometry to push these changes to the cloud.

After updating, all analyses will appear with the status Pending. You must run them again using Run All Analysis to generate new results.

Once analyses are completed and marked as Latest, you can open each analysis card to visualize the updated results one by one inside Revit.

New design elements can also be introduced directly, either as imported meshes or as native Revit objects such as walls, floors, or ceilings.

After adding new geometry, click Update Project Geometry once more, then re-run the analyses so results reflect your latest design.

Step 6. Checking Your Project on the Web

All your changes are synchronized with the infrared.city web app.

This means your design and analysis results are always available online, ready to be reviewed and shared. You and your colleagues can track updates in real time, whether in Revit or through the browser.