Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

This is neat.

I guess you are building the tool mostly (is this right?), but what sort of things are/do you imagine your users using it for? Is it granular enough to help, like, help plan a home solar installation?

It would be a neat, if slightly over-the-top, flex to have this in a flight simulator.



I think it's granular enough for solar. I put a tool together for annual sunlight[1] charts but haven't calculated the energy potential yet.

Some personal problems it solves for me:

- I hike/ski/climb a lot and want to know how late I can sleep in and still avoid the worst of the sun [2]

- I'm getting married this year and had wedding photos taken in a meadow in the mountains and we needed to set a time to meet with the photographer for a 2 hour session where we would still get sun but as late in the evening as possible.

- We're getting married in a back yard and want to place tables in a shady location for 5pm dinner

- I have a car I use occasionally and want to park it in a location that receives very little sun so the rubber/paint doesn't deteriorate as fast [3]

- We have a small van we take to the mountains and want to park it in the shade to keep it cool or sun to charge solar panels.

- etc, etc, etc

All these use-cases would be enhanced by trees and I can do it on my local machine but want to share if other people have similar needs.

[1] https://shademap.app/sunchart/#15/47.61754/-122.34365

[2] https://shademap.app/shadeprofile/

[3] https://shademap.app/@47.61767,-122.34993,16.13693z,16889544...


I have also used shademaps for my project on assessing walkability! While coverage for my country is pretty patchy, it helps looking at things at a glance. I used some maps to analyze correlation between urban heat islands, and the effect of tree presence and artificial shade.


Shademaps for the applucation for FV planning and optimization sounds cool.

Could they be helpful for agriculture planning, for example vineyards etc?

Another bunch could perhaps be the mobile bots which need to follow the sun or the shadow, either way.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: