This is great. I would love a way to simulate something like possible tree placement and how much shade that may generate over the years. There are some parts of my area that are, despite being cut out of a forest, devoid of trees but are supposed to be "outdoor shared spaces".
Full sun all day at a dog park in August, for example, just isn't a place I want to be.
Be sure to check out the different layers. In addition to the default which shows shade at a given moment, there are also options for hours of sun in given day, and an a UI to quickly show shade at any day/time of year.
I've wanted something like this - in Boulder the foothills cast a shadow on the town considerably earlier than sunset provided by weather apps. So in theory, this should be possible to figure out when a park will actually see a sunset. Nice work!
Ha! A friend and I had this idea ages ago when living in Austin. I actually have the domain “walkdarkly.com” registered for it, in case I ever got around to it. If somebody actually doing something with it wants the domain, I’m happy to talk about transferring it
This hints at a hiking trip planner maybe?
Depending on time of day and year evaluate a path to be in the direct sun/shade?
In summer, I might want to avoid the direct sun. Suggest the hiking path with least direct sunshine. And if it is autumn already, then please suggest a hiking path to be in the sun all day.
Might be a cool feature to compare hiking paths by percentage of direct sunshine.
But maybe, selecting a path through a forest vs. across open fields might already do.
My friends and I used this for a camping party's solar panel's placement (for charging a battery). A large campsite with intermixed trees makes it hard to find the optimal spot on our own, but this map helped us keep the party going late into the night before we needed to turn on the generator.
And I for placing a permanent solar array - I live in a deep, steep valley with a broad range of topography, and it helped me find an optimal spot for year-round balance of shade.
I've seen and loved this before but only today I thought to zoom all the way out and see the true terminator affected by elevation. We usually only seen the idealized smooth curve. Very neat!
I don’t know if the building data is from OSM but some of the buildings in my area are not high enough at all and therefore only make a really small shadow. It’s off by a factor of 3 or so.
There a street in Manhattan that, during a certain time of year the light shines all the way down the grid of buildings. Here's the link to that moment
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 20.2 ms ] threadFull sun all day at a dog park in August, for example, just isn't a place I want to be.
Has has existed for many years
it exists since many years with this French website
In summer, I might want to avoid the direct sun. Suggest the hiking path with least direct sunshine. And if it is autumn already, then please suggest a hiking path to be in the sun all day.
Might be a cool feature to compare hiking paths by percentage of direct sunshine.
But maybe, selecting a path through a forest vs. across open fields might already do.
I love the game like pixel perfect shadow maps.
I made a similar site last year - https://tonym128.github.io/peakylight/peakylight.html and used ray casting
There a street in Manhattan that, during a certain time of year the light shines all the way down the grid of buildings. Here's the link to that moment
https://shademap.app/@40.7426,-73.9841,13.48594z,17839875468...
Unfortunately, it kind of hides that it is doing that, which sucks. Usually the required attribution is placed in a corner of the map. Shade Map has a little information-i there which does appear to list OpenStreetMap according to my browser's dev-tools, but it seems to be broken and gets hidden behind other page elements, so only '© Shade Map |' is visible.
I'm not suggesting anything nefarious but it is odd.
Nice app/service though well done.