Shadow Analyzer

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Shadow Analyzer

Shadow Analyzer is a product of:

Dr. Baum Research e.K.

Pfitznerweg 20

D-74523 Schwäbisch Hall

Germany

http://www.drbaumresearch.com/

This product is built on C++ Libraries for Solar Technologies 1996-2009.

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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).

Note that you can use Shadow Visualizer and Shadow Analyzer not only for the visualization and analysis of your solar collector system, but also for many other tasks that are somehow associated with the solar radiation or solar light in architecture, solar design, and even in your everyday practical life.

The complete site analysis of your solar project in a given architecture environment

Use Shadow Analyzer to implement the site analysis and optimization of your solar project:

Create and manage 3D scenes with the architectural environment of your project.

Define dimensions and configurations of your static or suntracking solar collectors.

Visualize shadows on solar collectors for different days and seasons to understand their nature.

Set the climatic parameters of your site using the Bird model of a clear sky.

Calculate the energy losses associated with the shading of your collectors.

Compare the annual energy yeld of the different project versions to optimize the energy output.

Transfer data of your solar project (3D views, calculated tables, etc.) into other applications like MS Excel, MS Word, and MS PowerPoint to implement further numerical analysis, to write an illustrated report, or to create an animated presentation..

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 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 return later to a more regular reading of other chapters.

This is the screen shot of a typical session with Shadow Analyzer. You see the 3D View window with a view of the static collector system on the southern plane of the roof. This window is available also in Shadow Visualizer. You can use it for visual analysis of the shading of your collectors. You see also some "solar" windows that are available in Shadow Analyzer only. Each "solar" window has a few pages that display different aspects of the corresponding information. The Climate & Irradiance window allows to set the climatic characteristics of your site. The Solar Day and Solar Year windows display the irradiation, shading, energy losses, and energy output of your system.

Description

Shadow Analyzer is an advanced parametric CAD tool for professionals in the area of Solar Energy Engineering and Architecture. Unlike most of other 3D tools, Shadow Analyzer displays not only objects themselves, but also the shadows they cast.

Shadow Analyzer is an ideal tool for the analysis of the shadow effects of any new projects or in the case of in-place installation of solar energy equipment. It allows to analyze shadows from external objects as well as the self-shading of static or sun-tracking solar collector systems during a day in several seasons of the year, on any geographical latitude.

Shadow Analyzer not only visualizes shadows in 3D views for the express visual evaluations of the shading, but also shows additional windows for the calculations of the corresponding energy losses.

For architects, Shadow Analyzer is an easy method by which to evaluate the natural-light environment in an inter-building space.

The parametric CAD features of Shadow Analyzer allows 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 these transformations, you can save scenes in (.sa1) files.

Shadow Analyzer is a stand-alone tool. It does not depend on any other applications or any third-party packages.