How to install Ladybug for Grasshopper

Ladybug is a free plugin for Grasshopper that uses the EnergyPlus engine to provide a range of environmental calculations and visuals for input geometry. This guide will show you how to install Ladybug.

If you are looking to install the more recent Ladybug + Honeybee components for Grasshopper, this guide will help you too.

Check you have the right software

Firstly, you need Rhino 5. Rhino 4 won’t do! You can download a free trial here.

You also need Grasshopper, a free plugin for Rhino. Download the latest version here.

Then you need GHPython. Download it, and unzip it. In GH, open your components folder:

This should open a folder in a location like C:\Users\jramsden\AppData\Roaming\Grasshopper\Libraries. Paste GHPython.gha into this folder.

Install Ladybug

Visit the Ladybug page, take a read of it and have a look at the video. Then download the unlocked version from the page (or quicklink here). This should download a zip folder. Unzip this folder (the next step won’t work if you don’t unzip it first!).

Within the folder should be about 28 .ghuser files. Select them all and drag them directly into the GH window.

Done! To double-check, go to your GH User Object folder under the Special Folders as above (e.g. C:UsersjramsdenAppDataRoamingGrasshopperUserObjects). The .ghuser folders should be in here.

Now a new tab should have appeared in your GH window called Ladybug.

There are 5 categories of components, labelled 0-4. In using Ladybug, these are run through roughly in order.