mrjackel Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 I've been asked to work on a residential development. They need to work out the sun path and the sun's obstruction from the adjacent buildings, but I'm unsure of the best way to go about it. The development is a large house on a hill, and it is surrounded by about 10 other homes. Any suggestions for a simple & effective way to work this out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 Model it and produce an animation of the sun ranging from dawn 'til dusk at summer and winter solstice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjackel Posted July 30, 2015 Author Share Posted July 30, 2015 Hi Chris, I assumed that was the only way. It doesn't have to look good but I need it to be a true representation, and for it to be as quick and as low cost as possible. How would you recommend getting all of that model information? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 I wouldn't attempt it without a survey + plans of the proposed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjackel Posted July 30, 2015 Author Share Posted July 30, 2015 A survey's not available at this point. I have the title plans, and limited access to the site (it's heavily overgrown). The developer doesn't want to heavily invest yet. They've asked me to come up with some concepts for the land, but to do so I need the sun info. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 HAH! Sounds to me like you should be charging them a design fee - which I hope you are? Perhaps try buying an ordnance survey map (from multimap/promap/et al) and maybe grab a terrain snapshot from google sketchup (just geolocate the model) for some very rough height data? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smile of Fury Posted July 30, 2015 Share Posted July 30, 2015 What software are you using? You can get a pretty accurate-ish topo straight out of Google Earth via Sketchup and bring that into Max or Revit as an underlay. Both of those programs will give you an accurate sun path. Place your building in the correct spot above the underlay and then make simple cubes for the surrounding buildings. You can trace the footprint and then just estimate the height based on pictures. If you need more granular azimuth/altitude data I like to use this website: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchrender Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 http://www.sollumis.com/ Type in the address and set the month etc. Click on the lines to get rid of them and click erase to replace them. This is a very useful tool for getting the sun rise and sun set. Thinner the line the lower the sun , thicker higher. should be used when submitting a report for backing up you work and for verifying north points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted July 31, 2015 Share Posted July 31, 2015 But that doesn't take into account shadows cast, etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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