Solar studies

The Heliodon tool, available in the Vectorworks Design Series, places one or more special directional lights in a drawing for conducting sun studies, calculating shadow angles, and creating solar animations. The tool demonstrates the location of sunlight and shadows cast on the model as the sun’s position changes, for any day of the year and any location on earth. Accurate region/city information is used for the calculations. Vertical and horizontal shadow angles can be automatically calculated for determining the correct placement of shading devices, such as awnings. When combined with a physical sky background, the heliodon can create natural lighting that responds to the sun position and time of day. Additionally, an area of a drawing, such as a window or a portion of a large model, can be studied to determine when (or if) sunshine will affect it. Solar animations can be generated on screen or by exporting to a movie file.

To show soft shadows, a Renderworks render mode is required.

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Inserting a heliodon object

Creating solar animations

Calculating shadow angles

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