Shading geometry
Creating shading objects: draw shading elements as a polygon or rectangle and convert selected OSM buildings into shading objects with OSM to shading
Overview
Shading objects are anonymous geometry without a thermal model: neighboring buildings, canopies, walls, trees as substitute surfaces, and so on. They have neither a component assignment nor boundary conditions and are not exported into the simulation model. Their sole task is to act as an obstacle in the shading-factor calculation and to be displayed in the 3D scene (e.g. in the shadow cast of the surroundings analysis).
In the navigation tree they appear under their own root node Shading objects; each shading object groups together one or more surfaces. New shading surfaces receive the default color blue (#6E96C8). No shading factors are calculated for shading objects themselves – they only shade other surfaces.
There are two ways to create shading geometry: draw it manually or convert selected OSM buildings.
Drawing shading elements (polygon/rectangle)
Access: Building workspace, left toolbar of the geometry view, button 
Add, in the property panel that appears the group Shading with the buttons:
Polygon – free polygon from any number of vertices
Rectangle – rectangle from three placed points
The procedure corresponds to drawing normal surfaces (see Surfaces & Holes and Drawing aids):
- Click vertices in the scene or type coordinates via the input line. The points appear in the vertex table (Polygon vertices or Rectangle points) and can be corrected there (Delete last, Delete selected).
- Complete the contour with Create polygon or Create rectangle (alternatively, the Enter key).
- On the following page Shading-element properties, assign the name (default Shading element) and confirm with Create shading element. There is deliberately no component selection here.
The new surface is assigned to a shading object (default name Shading object) in the navigation tree. Shading surfaces can then be selected, transformed, copied, shown/hidden and deleted like other geometry.
Good to know:
For neighboring buildings, rough substitute surfaces are sufficient: a single vertical surface with the correct height and width shades practically the same as a detailed modeled structure – but the shading-factor calculation becomes considerably faster as a result. Model only the facades of the surroundings that face the building.
OSM to shading
Imported OpenStreetMap buildings (see OSM import) can be converted directly into shading objects:
Access: Panel Add, group Shading, button 
OSM to shading (tooltip Convert selected OpenStreetMap building to shading object). The button is only active when at least one OSM building is selected in the scene.
For each selected OSM building, a separate shading object is created:
- For OSM buildings with 3D extrusion, the surfaces Floor, Roof and Wall 1…n are created (each prefixed with the object name).
- For non-extruded buildings, surfaces Outline 1…n are created from the footprint polygons.
- The object name is taken from the OSM data (street and house number or stored address); if these are missing, the object is called OSM building <OSM ID>.
After the conversion, the 3D display of the original OSM building is deactivated so that the shading object and the OSM extrusion do not appear twice in the scene. The action can be undone as a single undo step (Convert OSM building to shading); the OSM display state is also restored in the process.
Effect in the shading calculation
- With the Surface partitioning method, the surfaces of all shading objects enter the clipping as obstacle polygons. In “Simulate only selected geometry” mode, only selected shading elements count.
- With the Rendering method, shading objects and OSM buildings are taken into account as part of the rendered scene.
- Changes to shading objects invalidate already-calculated shading factors – the up-to-date hash (see Calculating shading factors) proposes a recalculation.