[HN Gopher] Show HN: Google Maps Shadow Calculator
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Show HN: Google Maps Shadow Calculator
Author : gdaramouskas
Score : 102 points
Date : 2022-03-11 12:49 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shadowcalculator.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (shadowcalculator.eu)
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Very nice. Confirms that installing solar panels on my roof
| simply isn't economical.
|
| Guess installers would find something like this handy.
| ldayley wrote:
| As an outdoor photographer I'm constantly referring to an
| ephemeris[0] to check out the light situation at different times.
| This isn't nearly as full featured as what I use but I love the
| idea of hacking something like this together with common APIs for
| a quick and dirty approximation.
|
| Interesting work. Thank you.
|
| [0]: https://app.photoephemeris.com/
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Wow, this is going to be great for determining ideal time of day
| to climb at different areas
|
| edit: the controls really could use some work though
|
| edit2: It doesn't appear to take elevation data into account,
| which might be useful. More to the point, it doesn't take shadows
| from surrounding terrain into account
| cyborgx7 wrote:
| Very cool. Sorry for being "that guy" but I assume this doesn't
| take into account the earth surface curvature, just the relative
| sun position and then assumes a flat earth?
|
| It probably not nearly significant enough on the scale of the use
| case described on the site, but a shadow on a sphere has a
| different shape than a shadow on a plane. Though that effect may
| cancel out depending on the map projection that was used.
| alfanick wrote:
| Yup, seems to treat Earth as flat, not really useful in my area
| (living in the valley, surrounded by high mountains from east
| and west - sunrise time does not mean you're going to see sun,
| if it's still hiding behind a mountain).
| cpp_frog wrote:
| Assumes a flat surface, I've just tested it on a large crater
| [0].
|
| [0]
| http://shadowcalculator.eu/#/lat/-23.928141910247348/lng/-68...
| folli wrote:
| I personally find http://shademap.app much nicer.
|
| And obligatory plug for my Android App (if you need an Augmented
| Reality type of application to visualize the sun position):
| http://sunlocator.com
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I've got to say, as someone who lives nowhere near a city as
| big as NY, the view of the shadows that are cast upon Central
| Park throughout the day is simply mind blowing.
| a3_nm wrote:
| I thought this could solve the following problem: when camping
| during a mountain hike, figure out where to set up the tent, by
| knowing at which time you will be woken up by sunlight.
| Unfortunately this app doesn't seem to take elevation into
| account -- I don't know if there is some other tool that can do
| it.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I made a tool for this. Check out
| https://shademap.app/@37.72457,-119.60944,10.69315z,16470110...
| folli wrote:
| Big fan of your app (I even mention it in the thread, didn't
| see your comment): but what happened to the 3D view?
| compsciphd wrote:
| I actually proposed something similiar to friends at google maps,
| that it be interesting for walking directions to advise based on
| which route would be most shadowed (say in the hot summer in a
| non humid climate where there's a huge difference between
| shadowed and non shadowed paths in terms of comfort.
| victormier wrote:
| good job! would be great if you could add polygon params and
| datetimes in the url so it would be easier to share
| weichbild wrote:
| Ah this is perfectly timed--many of the old garden-focused
| azimuth / altitude / persephone day calculators are defunct and
| never handled the problem of cast shadows very well in the first
| place. Nice work!
| pmlamotte wrote:
| Very neat! An idea that often came up amongst coworkers while
| walking to a lunch spot during the hot summers was being able to
| get walking directions that preferred routes in shadow. We had
| our own routes we came up with that didn't add much time to the
| total trip but had a massive increase in shade versus almost none
| on the fastest route.
|
| This reminds me a lot of that, though you would need good data on
| building heights and shapes as well as which side of the sidewalk
| you would walk on (if walking on both is even possible). Would
| love to see that get created some day.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| One like this exists for Barcelona:
| https://www2.bcnregional.com/
| cpp_frog wrote:
| Awesome work! I'm using it to figure out the shadows cast by the
| Twin Towers (417 m. and 415 m., North and South towers,
| respectively) at different times of the day and different dates.
| They were truly gargantuan buildings.
|
| http://shadowcalculator.eu/#/lat/40.71136008109719/lng/-74.0...
| dsmmcken wrote:
| The drag handles are a bit finicky/small to grab, and would be
| nice to be able to set the heights as a group. Otherwise great!
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| The title is kinda misleading, as this has nothing to do with
| Google Maps other than using it as a map source.
| Snoozus wrote:
| so knowing the buliding height we could figure out which time and
| day the aerial picture was taken? And given time and day we could
| figure out how high the buildings are. Could this be used to
| generate large scale 3d building models automatically? Does
| anyone know whether this has been attempted?
| juki wrote:
| > Could this be used to generate large scale 3d building models
| automatically?
|
| A lot of places have lidar data available that can be used for
| that.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Nice work.
|
| If your interested in using this for evaluating solar production
| then check out https://solcast.com/
|
| There is a free version. I have it hooked this up to
| Homeassistant and predicting output for my home solar rig.
| alias_neo wrote:
| Could I use this to figure out what I might he able to achieve
| from adding solar to my home if I hooked it up to
| homeassistant?
|
| I'm in the UK and trying to work out if it's worth it with our
| subjectively poor sunlight.
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