OpenCities Planner has long allowed the end user to control the path of the sun to render realtime shadows in the 3D world. We’ve now added a Sun Study export tool to our visualisation arsenal.
This new feature allows the OpenCities Planner user to create and export a PDF file populated by screenshots from an identical camera position, with complete control over times and dates.
Sun Study window
Getting Started
First things first, the button to open Sun Study is found in the Top Bar – right next to the ‘Export Group’.
Look for the sun icon.
Sun Study Icon
Customise the Cover Page
The exported PDF report includes a cover page, which can be customised via the Title and Description sections in the Sun Study window. This allows the admin to, among other things, address the audience or explain the project.
Using the Date Picker
The Sun Study tool is preconfigured to collect screenshots for 9am, noon, and 3pm on the dates of the yearly solstices and equinoxes.
If the presets do not suit your needs, you can configure the tool to use any time and date combination you desire. Here are some tips on customisation:
Add – To add a date, click the ‘Add Date’ button and the Date Picker window will appear.
Delete – To delete a date, simply click the X-icon on the right side of the date button.
Date Picker – You can access the Date Picker window by adding or editing a date. From here, you choose the date on the calendar as well as specific times to capture – 9.00, 12.00 and 15.00 are preconfigured. You can click to edit the hour or minutes, in increments of 15, or click the right side X-icon to remove a specific time entirely.
Reset – Should you want go back to the ‘factory default’ settings, click the Reset button.
You Should Know…
Here are a few extra notes about using Sun Study.
The user controls the camera position and dimensions of the included screenshots. If you want to minimise the grey bars on the exported screenshots, adjust the size of your browser to better match the export.
If one of the times falls after sundown, or before sunrise, there will be no shadows rendered. Instead a near-opaque overlay is used, to best visualise nighttime.
Be aware that some 3D scenery includes strong shadows which cannot be adjusted, as it is a part of the data. In such a scenario you will see two sets of shadows – those ‘hardcoded’ into the scene as well as those generated by OpenCities Planner.
