Cyclops is a ray-tracing analysis plugin for Grasshopper that utilises the power of modern GPUs to accelerate environmental simulations. It supports a range of analyses including radiation, sunlight and daylight and is capable of efficiently managing large-scale, complex geometries and high density analyses.
The development of Cyclops is driven by Foster + Partners’ commitment to sustainability, promoting widespread adoption and the integration of more sustainable design practices across the industry.
The plugin offers a minimal update workflow using scenes where static data like geometries can be retained between analyses. This reduces computational overhead, making it ideal for optimization workflows and iterative processes. To get started and to understand what is required to run the different analyses, please have a look at the tutorial files that ship together with the plugin.
Read the documentation for further information.
Cyclops is in a beta phase and includes a 90-day expiry period. An upgrade will be required within 90 days to renew the expiry and ensure access to the latest updates.
System requirements
Cyclops is compatible with Rhino 7 and 8 on Windows. It requires an NVIDIA GPU of compute capability 5.0 (Maxwell) or higher. This means most modern NVIDIA GPUs will work, for a complete list of supported GPUs see the NVIDIA CUDA GPUs. Cyclops also requires an NVIDIA driver of version 536.25 or higher. The driver version can be checked in the NVIDIA Control Panel and updates can be downloaded from the NVIDIA website.
In some corporate environments, updating GPU drivers may require administrator permissions. If you're unable to install or update the necessary drivers, contact your IT department for assistance.
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