Welcome to Shadow Analyzer Collection
3D Message, 3D Draw Shadows, Shadow Visualizer, and Shadow Analyzer are products of:
Dr. Baum Research e.K.
Pfitznerweg 20
D-74523 Schwäbisch Hall
Germany
These products are built on C++ Libraries for Solar Technologies 1996-2009.
Copyright © 2009 Dr. Baum Research e.K. All Rights Reserved.
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Note that this Help file "SA_Collection_Help.chm" (which you are reading now) is common for all products of the Shadow Analyzer Collection (3D Message, 3D Draw Shadows, Shadow Visualizer, and Shadow Analyzer).
This Help is written as a step-by-step tutorial. Therefore, you can read it consecutively as an entire book. You can see its structure in the "Contents" tab. To find a particular term or topic, use the "Search" tab. To remember the location of a particular topic, use the "Favorites" tab.
If you prefer to get your own practical 3D experience as soon as possible, read and implement steps of the topic A Typical Session that is a very detailed step-by-step instruction on how to use most of the interface elements to create and decorate a simple scene.
If you have an interest in solar energy (as an ordinary user or as a professional installer of solar collectors) and want firstly to know how our products Shadow Visualizer and Shadow Analyzer can help you to error-proof, develop, and optimize your solar project, start your reading at once from the chapter Your Solar Project, and later return to a more regular reading of other chapters. In particular, see there the topic Visualize Shadows that describes our visual methods, which are available in both the products.
The screen shot below shows the scenes that you can create with products of the Shadow Analyzer Collection. You can use any one of our applications as a 3D-illustrator of your ideas and as a 3D-communicator in your contacts with friends and colleagues. In addition, Shadow Visualizer helps you to avoid the shading of your solar collectors. And Shadow Analyzer (as the most advanced product) allows you to implement the complete site analysis of your solar project.
The Shadow Analyzer Collection
The Shadow Analyzer Collection includes the following products:
Free software:
Products with Full and Trial versions:
Each product is a stand-alone tool that does not depend on any other applications or any third-party packages.
Note that usually you do not need more than one product of the Shadow Analyzer Collection, because each next product in the sequence 3D Message, 3D Draw Shadows, Shadow Visualizer, Shadow Analyzer is "higher" than the previous one and contains all the features of "lower" products.
All products of the Shadow Analyzer Collection have the advanced parametric CAD features that allow you to compose scenes, populate them with objects, change object dimensions, location, orientation, colors, and reflectivities. You can also apply textures to objects' surfaces. After all the transformations, you can save scenes in files.
Each product has its own feature-limited (time-unlimited) Trial version. In the Trial version, you can try the user interface and can train yourself in how to compose new scenes, but you cannot save scenes in files.
All the products have compatible file formats with the same (.sa1) extension. The scene files are amazingly small (only a few kilobytes). You can send them by email. Your recipients do not need to buy any product to read your 3D messages -- they can use the Trial version as a free viewer to view your scenes (we recommend 3D Draw Shadows Trial for this purpose).