Are there any software packages/solutions that allow me to simulate the movement of sun or direction of sunlight over a period of time (e.g. 24 hours)?
My purpose is to determine the regions cast in shadow for different times of day, when used in combination with a DEM.
Answer
There are some tools that will meet your needs:
- GRASS GIS
r.sunmasktool - which will perform fully automatic shadow cast computation based on DEM. It is based on SOLPOS 2.0 sun position algorithm. Please refer to detailed description on GRASS manual webpage. - SAGA-GIS
Analytical Hillshading module- this tool will also derive shadow cast but it's not as automatic as GRASS one. Apart from delivering DEM to SAGA you will also need to input detailed sun position information. To do so: extract WGS84 coordinates of DEM center point, use this solar position calculator pass computed solar azimuth and elevation angle as inputs in Analytical Hillshading module. Attention: only northern hemisphere positions are supported. - ESRI's ArcGIS
Sun Shadow Volume(3d Analyst) - as far as I remember this tool is also provided with sun position calculation algorithm. Haven't been using this one in a while so I will refer to official instructions.
Using those enlisted modules you can create rasters for any time interval an then create an animation if needed.
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