Drawing Sun Path

Master the Sun Tool to analyse solar patterns across your property for seasonal shade and light planning. Access detailed instructions on entering latitude, longitude, and timezones, adjusting dates and times, and evaluating summer versus winter sun paths to optimise shelter and crop placement.

Drawing Sun Path Using Sun Tool in Permiehub

Observing the sun’s path is essential for site design, especially when planning for summer shade and winter light.

Our Goal

The following guide helps you use the Sun Tool in the Site Analysis overlay. It covers how to place the tool on your design, adjust its size, display specific times and months, duplicate it, and modify its settings.

Working with Permaculture Site Analysis Sun Tool

The Sun Tool helps you evaluate how sunlight and shadows move across your landscape throughout the year. It provides vital information when placing energy-efficient buildings, locating solar panels, or positioning plants according to their light needs. Sunlight direction and solar angles always align with the central intersection of the tool, ensuring accurate analysis wherever you place it. You might want to place a Sun Tool to show the direction of sun rays on areas such as:

• main building for passive solar gains and dynamic summer shading,
• outdoor seating,
• deciduous tree plantings,
• pergolas and gazebos.

Alternative Tools

While area markers allow you to highlight static zones of full sun or deep shade, the Sun Tool visualises dynamic solar movement. Using both tools together provides a comprehensive view of how solar energy interacts with specific features on your land.

Starting Point

To use the Sun Tool in the Site Analysis overlay, open your editable project canvas. Having a general idea of your site location and orientation will help you evaluate solar observations during the design process. The toolbox provides quick access to the Sun Tool alongside other site analysis tools.

Step 1: Select & Position Sun Tool

A Sun Tool object may already be present on your canvas if you used the Base Map Wizard to set up your project.

Change Sun Tool Position

When the Base Map Wizard imports available data, it adds one Sun Tool object to your project based on the provided location. For privacy reasons, exact coordinates are never stored, and the tool uses an approximate position by rounding latitude and longitude. If the Sun Tool object is hidden below other elements, follow these steps to bring it forward:

1. Select the Sun Tool object.
2. Click Raise to Top in the top menu.

Move Sun Tool to Interest Points

Positioning the Sun Tool object over key structures, gardens, or outdoor living spaces allows you to check local shading. To explore solar paths across different spots of your property, you can create additional Sun Tool objects across your drawing and set their individual locations, or duplicate an existing Sun Tool object to save time.

1. Click or tap your Sun Tool object to select it.
2. Hold and drag to position the central intersection over the area where you wish to investigate sun movement.

Step 2: Adjust Sun Tool Settings

Fine-tuning the attributes of the Sun Tool object ensures accurate solar angles and allows you to view sun paths for specific times of year.

Set Sun Tool Approximate Location Using Search by Town

You can set the location of the Sun Tool object by searching for a nearby town or city in the properties panel. Selecting a town automatically updates the approximate latitude, longitude, and timezone settings.

1. Click or tap your Sun Tool object.
2. In its attributes, click the Search by Town button.
3. Select the town and confirm by clicking the Save button.

The location will be rounded to the closest latitude and longitude for privacy reasons.

Set Sun Tool Approximate Location Manually

If you prefer to enter coordinates directly, open the properties panel and type the approximate latitude and longitude. Adjusting the timezone ensures the solar angles match local time.

1. Click or tap your Sun Tool object.
2. In its attributes, change the following three values to match your location and timezone:
   • Latitude to determine the northern or southern hemisphere, using a minus prefix for southern latitudes,
   • Longitude to define the horizontal position,
   • Timezone to align solar angles with local time.

Resize Sun Tool

The dimensions of the Sun Tool object represent its visual size on your drawing, controlled directly by the width and height of the object rather than a numerical property attribute. Adjusting the visual size does not change functionality, because sunlight angles always relate to the central intersection point. You can resize the Sun Tool object while preserving its aspect ratio by dragging its outer corners.

1. Select the Sun Tool object on your drawing canvas.
2. Drag a corner handle inward or outward to resize.

Show Sun Tool Month

By default, the Sun Tool object displays the winter and summer solstices, as these represent the extreme paths of the sun and define the outer boundary of solar angles throughout the year. Enabling the month toggle in the properties panel allows you to project the sun’s trajectory for any selected month.

1. Click or tap your Sun Tool object to select it.
2. In its attributes, find Month and change its value.
3. Click the Show button next to the Month attribute to display the sun path for your selected month.

Show Sun Tool Time

Toggling the time setting displays the position of the sun at a specific hour of the day. You can then see how the solar direction affects that specific spot on your drawing.

1. Click or tap your Sun Tool object to select it.
2. Under its attributes, find Hour and change it to the time you wish to investigate.
3. Click the Show button next to the attribute to display the sun position at the selected time.

Show Sun Tool Month & Time

Combining both month and time controls lets you pinpoint the exact sun angle for any moment in the year, helping you evaluate seasonal light variations in detail.

1. Click or tap your Sun Tool object to select it.
2. Under its attributes, find Hour and set it to the time you wish to investigate.
3. Set the value of the Month attribute.
4. Click the Show button next to both attributes to display the sun position for the selected time and month.

Step 3: Reuse Sun Tool Settings

Once you have configured a Sun Tool object with accurate location settings, you can copy it across your project rather than setting up new instances from scratch.

Duplicate Sun Tool

To duplicate a configured Sun Tool object, select it on the drawing canvas and click the Duplicate icon. Alternatively, press ^Ctrl+C and ^Ctrl+V, or ^Cmd+C and ^Cmd+V on your keyboard to create an exact copy with identical location settings, which you can then drag to another spot on your property.