The Foster + Partners Applied R+D team has developed Cyclops, a free, bespoke design plugin for Grasshopper in Rhino.
Cyclops is a ray-tracing analysis plugin for Grasshopper that utilizes the power of modern GPUs to accelerate environmental simulations. It supports a range of analyses, including radiation, sunlight, and daylight, and can efficiently manage large-scale, complex geometries and high-density analyses.
Cyclops seamlessly integrates into existing workflows and provides analytical feedback to designers in real-time. It turbocharges ray tracing simulations that are fundamental for environmental analyses.
Martha Tsigkari, Senior Partner and Head of Applied R+D, Foster + Partners, said: “Cyclops is the latest iteration of a tool that we have been extensively developing, refining, and actively using on projects, over the past fifteen years. During this time, we have experimented with different technologies and user interfaces, allowing designers to run environmental analyses that used to take hours, or even days, in a matter of seconds. We believe that Cyclops will play an important role in supporting positive change within the architectural and engineering industry – enhancing sustainability across a wide range of global projects.”
The development of Cyclops is driven by Foster + Partners’ commitment to sustainability. It is being released as a free plugin to encourage widespread adoption and the integration of more sustainable design practices across the industry.
Cyclops also enhances the professional development of junior designers by allowing them to rapidly gauge their designs’ performance in real-time. In doing so, they will quickly develop an intuition for what makes a building or master plan perform better.
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.
Find out more and install the Cyclops plugin...
Posted Apr 29, 2025 by Sandy McNeel on Rhino News, etc.