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Software to improve performance

The design and assessment software solutions of the CSTB help the stakeholders of the construction industry and cities improve the performance of their projects: energy, environment, acoustics, lighting, airflow management, and more. In a context of digital transition, these software packages also anticipate technological breakthroughs that are profoundly changing professional practices. To support these trends, the CSTB boosted its activity in 2016 in three areas: enriching the calculation engines, developing BIM interfaces and diversifying deployment, in France and internationally.

The CSTB is developing software to support the use of digital modeling in association with simulation. Discover the key new features in 2016, in the focus section below. Additionally, the CSTB is forming partnerships with software developers to expand and deploy its solutions on a larger scale. Examples include the agreement signed in 2016 with Perrenoud, which delivers the Cometh engine of the CSTB with its thermal calculation software, and with Cype for the integration of two calculation engines of the CSTB in a BIM-compatible version: acoubat, devoted to acoustic comfort, and Cometh, for energy performance. These tools are made available through the software developers' distribution networks.

Strong market trend: the CSTB relies on SaaS (software as a service) technology and the cloud to offer innovative services online (remote access to software and data). The objective is to bring together reliable, secure tools, such as calculation software, BIM solutions, databases, etc., and to facilitate their distribution to all stakeholders.

Focus on software

Elodie, new version: to meet today's environmental challenges, the CSTB has upgraded Elodie, which is LCA software for the construction industry. It calculates the performance levels of projects under the requirements of the new E+C- accreditation, launched experimentally by the public authorities in November 2016. Elodie also includes the criteria of the BBCA (Low Carbon Buildings) accreditation. The Elodie-Nest version, designed in partnership with Nobatek, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques technological center, offers the unique feature of predicting the performance of a development project. Launched in 2016, this software extends environmental calculation to the urban scale.

eveBIM, new version: The eveBIM viewer now offers a multi-scale view of projects. In its latest version, this software provides views and navigation of buildings and cities, using BIM avatars. It reads the standard international formats (IFC, CityGML, SIG, etc.), which boosts its interoperability with business solutions and calculation software. It also features new functions to facilitate data exporting and targeted data use, for example. Available for free on Batipedia.com in summer 2017, eveBIM is compatible with industry plug-ins, custom-developed by the CSTB or from its software library (EveBIM®SDK).

Enriched acoustic suite: acoustic quality, which is essential to the comfort of housing units, but also trains, cars or even neighborhoods, can be assessed started at the design phase of a project. The CSTB's software suites predict acoustic performance, calculate sound and vibration levels, compare variations and facilitate informed design choices. They offer stakeholders the unique possibility of assessing the soundscape of a living space by listening to a simulation, thanks to spatialized sound rendering. In 2016, these software suites were enpanded with a new version of AcouBAT and AcouSYS, as well as the market launch of new tools such as MithraSON and MEFISSTO.

Logiciels phares en acoustique