Very cool tool! It's generally accurate, but, there are spots showing shadows where there are no trees or anything at all to cast a shadow, and missing several spots where there are actually trees.
It's missing a 40' tall ash, a 40' tall maple, and all four 30' tall blue spruce. So they're not exactly small trees. Our septic field is showing as in shadow all day even though there are no trees near it. That shadow doesn't move at all like the rest so I'm not sure what it's detecting.
Sorry about that. The current tree estimate is done via computer vision but I am working on migrating to LiDAR backed data which should eliminate false positives.
Just waiting for the TBs and TBs of data to download and then this Macbook M4 is going to make some heat...
Hi there! My office window faces east and this morning, your map showed shade from the building across the street (correct), as well as shade from my building on the lawn below my window (incorrect).
Thanks for the reply. Do you have a tree or bush outside your window? I estimate where tree shadows fall but it's not super accurate. In the settings dialog you can toggle, "below canopy", "above canopy" or disable tree shadows altogether.
I've seen the setting, and I've seen that you suggest toggling it when tree shadows seem inaccurate, can you elaborate on what that setting does exactly?
"Top of canopy" - view from above like looking down from an airplane window. You won't see any shadows looking down on a forest because you only see sunlight landing on the top of the canopy. Most accurate.
"Below canopy" - what shadows would look like on the ground. If you're in a dense forest everything is in shadow because the trees obscure the sun. I guesstimate how big and where the below canopy shadows land. Any vegetation that's more than 2 meters tall, I place a shaded area beneath it. Not super accurate because it treats trees like cylinders instead of a sphere/triangle on top of a cylinder.
"No trees" - only building and terrain shadows are shown on the map.
Comments
This doesn't look particularly accurate, at least not relative to what I can see right now out my window.
Website creator/maintainer here. Happy to try and diagnose the error if you elaborate on what the discrepancy is (tree, building, hill, etc)...
Very cool tool! It's generally accurate, but, there are spots showing shadows where there are no trees or anything at all to cast a shadow, and missing several spots where there are actually trees.
It's missing a 40' tall ash, a 40' tall maple, and all four 30' tall blue spruce. So they're not exactly small trees. Our septic field is showing as in shadow all day even though there are no trees near it. That shadow doesn't move at all like the rest so I'm not sure what it's detecting.
Sorry about that. The current tree estimate is done via computer vision but I am working on migrating to LiDAR backed data which should eliminate false positives.
Just waiting for the TBs and TBs of data to download and then this Macbook M4 is going to make some heat...
Have you written up how you built it? I'd be curious.
Hi! I've recently made a shade calculator specifically for climbs in North wales:
https://connies.club/shade/12083/holyhead-mountain
It's important for me to use accurate height-maps as (obviously) the terrain is very three dimensional.
Are you using the public LiDAR data as well?
Hi there! My office window faces east and this morning, your map showed shade from the building across the street (correct), as well as shade from my building on the lawn below my window (incorrect).
Thanks for the reply. Do you have a tree or bush outside your window? I estimate where tree shadows fall but it's not super accurate. In the settings dialog you can toggle, "below canopy", "above canopy" or disable tree shadows altogether.
I've seen the setting, and I've seen that you suggest toggling it when tree shadows seem inaccurate, can you elaborate on what that setting does exactly?
"Top of canopy" - view from above like looking down from an airplane window. You won't see any shadows looking down on a forest because you only see sunlight landing on the top of the canopy. Most accurate.
"Below canopy" - what shadows would look like on the ground. If you're in a dense forest everything is in shadow because the trees obscure the sun. I guesstimate how big and where the below canopy shadows land. Any vegetation that's more than 2 meters tall, I place a shaded area beneath it. Not super accurate because it treats trees like cylinders instead of a sphere/triangle on top of a cylinder.
"No trees" - only building and terrain shadows are shown on the map.
Hmm, maybe I'm missing something, but what's the difference between "top of canopy" and "No trees" then?
Toggling to no canopy fixes it - palm trees cast little to no shade
Would just like to say thank you so much for this tool! Ended up finding a quieter park to watch the eclipse last night.