Lighting simulation with Groundhog
  • Introduction
  • License
  • Installation instructions
  • Radiance
  • History
  • Tutorials and learning
    • Getting started
    • Add a Workplane
    • Adding Windows
    • Materials
    • Weather Files
    • Adding Illum surfaces
    • Grouping Windows
    • Exporting Views
    • The design assistant
    • The simulation manager
    • Objectives
  • Basic Lighting Theory
    • Lighting Units
    • Climate Based Daylight Modeling
    • Daylight Metrics
  • Coding for Groundhog
    • Coding standards
    • List of Labels
    • List of Values
  • Appendixes
    • GNU General Public License
    • Known issues
  • Known issues
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On this page
  • Install Sketchup
  • Install Groundhog
  • Installing an Extension
  • Install XQuartz

Installation instructions

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Last updated 6 years ago

For using Groundhog you will need to install 2 components:

  1. Sketchup (2016 or earlier)

  2. Groundhog

  3. XQuartz (Only for OSX users that use version El Capitan or later)

While Groundhog is absolutely free, SketchUp may or may not be free, depending on what you want to do with it.

Install Sketchup

Trimble SketchUp is a friendly 3D modeling tool that is distributed in two versions:

  • SketchUp make: A free version of SketchUp for non-commercial and educational use.

  • SketchUp pro: The commercial version of SketchUp, that has some more features than the "make" version.

Groundhog can be used with either of those versions, which you can get from .

Weather you choose SketchUp pro or make is up to you. Groundhog will not be responsible for any agreement you make with Trimble.

Install Groundhog

Groundhog is the extension you install over SketchUp. You may download it from .

Notice that you will have to choose the appropriate version for you, depending on your Operative System.

The Radiance binaries that come with Groundhog are a courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Installing an Extension

  1. Open SketchUp

  2. Go to "Preferences" (in the Window menu, in Windows; or in SketchUp menu in Mac)

  3. Select the "Extensions" pane

  4. Click on "Install extension"

  5. An open dialog will appear. Choose the "Groundhog.rbz" file you downloaded.

  6. They may warn you about installing 3rd party extensions... just agree if you trust us.

Install XQuartz

This is relevant only for those who use Mac OS X

From "El Capitan" and afterwards, OSX does not come with XQuartz installed. This utility is required to run some Radiance functions, like previewing the model.

An article of this exists in the . But, since we are not sure how long it will be kept there, we will provide some instructions:

Please download and install XQuartz from its website

SketchUp.com
groundhogproject.org
SketchUp documentation
https://www.xquartz.org/