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Comment by gwd | Hacker News Reader

Leveling this up: Calculate sun angles at different times of the year to simulate light entering the house. Find out if some room is going to be unbearably hot in the summer because it's got too much full sunlight; make sure there are windows that can take maximum advantage of sunlight in the winter months; maximize opportunities to accidentally catch the sunset / sunrise.

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I did this. Less so for the sun light entering the windows (albeit a great idea), but more so for making sure I'd see the sunsets. There are great websites that will let you see the sunrise and sunset directions for any given day of the year.

Awnings are your friend, particularly on windows facing the equator. It's not very difficult to calculate all the ways sun will hit a window throughout the year and design an awning to block the sun in the summer but not the winter.

We use it all the time for light studies. LAT / LONG inputs in Enscape. I've actually compared models to actual days and it's pretty f'n spot on.

This is so awesome. I wish more realistic problems get solved like this instead of every new gadget getting shoehorned for gaming or porn.

I feel like at this point you should just hire an architect.

1000%. If you have the luxury/curse of _building_ the house on empty land simulating light is extremely important imo. It determines everything from layout of rooms to window placement to furnishing etc. (You probably don’t want eg sun behind TV). Even ants orient their dwellings with respect to sunlight.

Maybe integrate with Stellarium to use as a sky box and lighting.

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