The Problem
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) owns OpenStudio, a building energy modeling program. It runs fairly complicated mathematical models to calculate a building’s annual energy usage. It’s used primarily for planning new building projects and getting grants.
Essentially, a user could input building dimensions and features to get an estimate of energy expenditure. They needed to be able to ask questions like, “What would happen if we rotate this building?” “What if we used triple-pane glass instead of double-pane?”
In the past, building planners used Google Sketch Up to draw floorplans for use in OpenStudio, but a few years ago, they hit a licensing problem. Google Sketch Up was no longer a viable option and NREL needed a 2D editor that was purpose-built for commercial building floorplans and could be embedded into OpenStudio.
Because this is a product for the Department of Energy, FloorSpaceJS needed to be open-source, so other companies can make changes to the codebase.