Solar studies help you visualize the impact of natural light and shadows on the exteriors and interiors of projects.
Create solar studies to see how shadows from terrain and surrounding buildings affect a site, or where natural light penetrates a building at specific times of the day and year.
By showing the impact of natural light and shadows on your project, solar studies yield valuable information that can help support effective passive solar design.
Tips for creating solar studies
- Create solar studies using the sun path or the Sun Settings dialog, or a combination of both.
- Use the Sun Settings dialog to access preset sun positions, shared sun settings, view-specific lighting settings, time intervals, and ground plane settings.
- To produce a series of solar studies, create and open multiple views of a project, and then specify a different solar study period for each view. For example, create separate views for winter solstice, summer solstice, spring equinox, and fall equinox studies. Tile the views to see them all at once.
- You can create solar studies for the same building model in different locations. For example, if the same retail store will be constructed in Los Angeles and London, change the project location, and then export a solar study for each geographic location.