Sun-Shade Machine

Inspired by Frei Otto's sun-shade machine, this grasshopper definiton generates the shadow of mesh objects for a given geographical location, date, and time. North is in positive y-direction.

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"The sun-shade machine, [...] is an extremly flexible tool for determining in the first phase of planning the areas of insolation and shade. [...] the sun-shade machine offers an infinitely variable adjustment for three parameters: geographical location, month, nd time of the day." IL 30 Vela, Toldos, sun and shade (1986)

Armillary Sphere

An armillary sphere is a model of the celestrial sphere. The drawing is from Christoph Clavius commentary on the book De Sphaera from 1581.

This grasshopper definition generates the position of ecliptic and sun for a given time, timezone and date at a given position on earth. The real position of the sun deviates from this position by approx. +/- 15 min. The reason is the eccentricity of the earths's orbit around the sun. (see equation of time).

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