Sketchup 3D model of windowfarms
8:51 am in International, kits, Other Cool Urban Ag. Stuff, questions by Stuart Rogers
Hi
I am a newbie to windowfarming, having recently bought a Classic kit via the Kickstarter site. I’m looking forward to March when they ship.
Until then I am planning the best place to put my farm. As an architect, I build 3D computer models of buildings, and I often use them to check the path of sunlight coming through windows at different times of the year. It occurred to me that I could find the best place for the windowfarm using this method!
I should explain that I am also waiting to move into a new apartment in a foreign country, so I do not have first-hand experience of which windows are sunny at what times, etc etc. But I could also use it to include Windowfarms in future (as-yet-unbuilt) architectural projects, to see how they would look. And it might be nice to design other elements around the kit, like an enclosure for the pump, or housings for lighting.
There are obviously many creative / engineering types on this forum, so I was wondering if anyone had made a model of their setup using Google Sketchup or other 3D software?
And if it is possible to get hold of an accurate 3D model or drawings of the Classic Windowfarm (from the industrial designers who designed it, for example), that would just make my day!
Failing that, I might make a sketchup model of the Classic Windowfarm when it arrives in March, and I will post it here.
Thanks for reading!
Stu
Well, you could extrapolate the general dimensions, then create a rendering with one side facing out the window. It’s likely 8-10″ per shelf. Hope that will help you.
Just a note that modeling the sun coming in the window is really worthwhile. And it really has not been explored very much. A couple of years ago I searched for software to test the capabilities of different solar cooker reflectors. I eventually landed with an easy to learn FREE! cross platform animation and modeling software called Art of Illusion. I am crap at any type of programing so I asked for help from the art of illusion community and a guy from Finland started my “scene file” of the sun passing over different reflector shapes. (I used this software to compare 4 different reflectors (Including 2 types that nobody ever made in real life!) but if someone had a little more intensity and ability a “scene file” could be designed to represent the sun going across the sky on any day of the year anywhere in the world! This would be awesome for anybody with a garden.
The scene file is separate from the art of illusion program, small and DOWNLOADABLE!
Just download the scene file, start up art of illusion, and pop your site plan straight into the scene! This can show how much sunlight any part of your property gets on any day of the year. INCREDIBLY USEFUL to anyone buying a property, or adding an extension or planning a garden or windowfarming! But the art of illusion enthusiasts never quite got what I meant. Do any of you? Anyways, art of illusion is free software, and anyone can make a scene file to go into it.
If you have good physics understanding and basic understanding of programing you can do it!
Here is my video that compares 4 different reflector shapes. (by comparing how much of the sunlight it collects at different times). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIRhNRk_0js Please note that I am not good at video making or at using art of illusion. But the software and attempt led to greater understanding of reflectors. If art of illusion (or another software) was used with windowfarm windows, it might help people a lot. People might move their plants to a more suitable window depending on the time of the year! Sorry for the ramble but maybe some people got what I mean. Brian
Guys- This is an awesome thread! I’m so excited about us building some momentum around this. I will get the 3D files up somewhere as soon as I can (I’m in the midst of visiting plastics factories right now all over the country!!). In the meantime, I just heard about a google earth plug in that maps the sun’s movement around a particular location throughout the year. I have not had time to look into it yet, but the new tool we are building out for the new windowfarmers will be focused on data logging about plants and their growth. We are going to encourage people to include some invisible/managed geolocation data, so we could conceivably take stuart’s idea much farther. Keep in mind that we need to remind people about shadows too. I for one have a building across the street that causes a windowfarm eclipse every day from about 11:20 am-1:40 pm this time of year (when I have to set the timer to turn my LED growlights on), so I wonder to what extent any of these tools are going to be able to calculate for these uber-nerdy factors. -Britta
Thanks for the responses everyone!
Stephen, I could try and make a model from pictures but I think I will wait until I receive the real thing and then measure it (unless Britta can get hold of the 3D files), thanks though!
Brian, I haven’t seen Art of Illusion before, looks good. I have used Blender in the past which I think does the same sort of thing and is also open-source. I like the cooking pot reflector idea too, but you would need a different reflector for each specific location (the sun’s path is obviously different in different parts of the world), plus it changes throughout the year so you might need to do analysis in different months as well as different times of day, and I suspect it is not efficient to have a one-shape-fits-all reflector. What about a flexible reflector that changes shape (inflatable perhaps?) instead of tracking the sun. But interesting to think about!
Britta, glad you like the thread! The data logging project sounds interesting, and the data would grow into a useful resource for a newbie like me.
Google Earth and Sketchup work together, which means that you can test 3D models in simulated real-world locations, and see where shadows fall at different times of the year, something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LejzHRCi58
The procedure would be:
1. import a site from Google Earth into Sketchup (includes geolocation data, terrain and satellite image, possibly existing buildings if someone has uploaded them)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Oc05luFBo
2. in Sketchup create your model on the site,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsfH_cyXa1o
3. use Sketchup’s lighting to see where shadows fall on the model,
4. (optional) upload your model to Google Earth so that others can see your model in context.
It is good for checking for windowfarm eclipses, but doesn’t give you any scientific values, like lumens or Watts or anything like that (there is no doubt software for doing that but it is probably even too uber-nerdy for me!). But at least you can see which parts of a room / garden / balcony get some direct sunlight and at what times of day / year, which ultimately might give you information about what to grow.
Enjoy!
Stuart
Hi Stuart, I have done lots of work on the reflector thing. Once you know the rules, the sun’s motion in the sky is very predictable. Art of illusion has ray tracing so you can model a cooking pot and reflector (or different reflector shapes) effectively including bouncing rays of light. You can also compare the effectiveness of different reflector shapes. (It is orders of magnitude easier to use than blender)
When I did this a couple of years ago, sketchup did not have any shadow modeling. Now, it seems to have effective shadow modeling for everywhere even in the free version!
Just as google did with their software, it would be relatively easy for a software geek to make a scene file (with adjustable day and latitude) so that you can use shadow modeling in Art of Illusion anywhere in the world.
For windowfarmers, have you tried putting the sketchup camera “in the house” and checking what the shadows are like on given days? In art of illusion, you could put the camera anywhere, (even on the sun!) so presumably in sketchup you could put it in the house too. This might be very useful if there are trees or buildings across the street. In some situations, you might have a month of shadows that will cause you slower growth at certain times of the year. For instance on roofs with long overhangs, you might get better winter light than in summer. Sketchup might show this before you plan your windowfarming season!