Summary
In OpenSolar, you are still able to create a 3D design without having access to 3D mapping data. Our Manual mode makes this process simple and efficient so you can create accurate proposals for your customers.
Table of contents:
Creating a 3D design
In your design section, expand the design mode drop-down and select "Manual" mode.
The imagery provider will give you the flexibility of choosing your background and the following options are available:
- Google API ground imagery
- Google ground imagery
- No Ground Imagery
If you want to use google imagery as the background you can select either Google API imagery or Google ground imagery. On the contrary, if you want to use your own imagery, or you want to work on a blank canvas you can select "no ground imagery". You can find more information about loading your own imagery here.
For this demonstration we will select "No ground imagery".
Note: Each grid on the blank background is 10 meters in length.
The system automatically faces north, but you can use the compass on the bottom right corner to change the orientation.
By expanding the advanced menu on the top right corner of your screen you will have access to our manual drawing tools. These will allow you to draw out a roof for your solar design. Please note that the following options are available:
- Roof: Allows you to draw out a plat roof
- A-frame: Allows you to draw out a A-frame roof
- Hip: Allows you to draw out a hip roof
- Shed: Allows you to draw out a shed roof
Note: You can combine the different types of roofs to make your home.
When one of the quick roofs are selected, a step-by-step guidance will appear on the left-hand side guiding you to create the section of the home:
Using the roof tool, you can draw out the home by placing points in each corner. A building will appear once the first and last points touch:
Once the building is created, a menu will appear in the left-hand side. With it, you can adjust the roof type and wall type as well as the height of the home:
Right-click and drag to rotate around the map, or if on a trackpad (mac), two-finger click and drag.
You can use solar touch as normal to paint your panels on the roof. The panels should automatically snap onto the roof as they detect the azimuth and slope.
Adding Obstacles and trees
Once you've created your 3D design, you have the option to add trees and obstacles to account in your shading calculations.
Obstacles:
To place obstacles, expand your advance settings one again and select obstruction:
Place the point where the obstruction will be located:
With the obstruction selected, you can right click on the point to change the shape of your obstruction. You can use the menu on the left-hand side to change the length, Width and Height of the obstruction:
Trees:
To add trees to the home, expand the advanced settings menu and select the "tree" option:
A tree will attach itself to your cursor and you can click anywhere in the design section to drop it. You have the option of changing the tree type by right clicking on the tree and the menu on the left-hand side will allow you to change the length, width, and height of it:
You can find more information about adding and removing a tree here.
Shading
Once the design is completed and obstructions and trees are placed you can see how everything affects the production of your system. To access the shading, you can click on the panel array and expand the "shading" section on the left-hand side menu:
In this example, a particular hour of the day has been selected from the shading reported, the raytracing shows the impact of a nearby tree on this solar array. You can raytrace each hour of the day to view shading losses. Please see this article to learn more about how to interpret and use this shade report.
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