Isandro - Module 8 - Part 1

My tool will help architects and designers modify a solar roof canopy for residential and commercial building rooftops. The idea here is that a solar canopy that responds to the suns rays (opening when available, rotating when needed, and closing when gone) would be a very efficient photovoltaic mechanism and would last much longer than a normal panel array. Its ability to close and protect its panels when conditions are unideal increases the longevity of the design.

My tool provides a fluidity and speed of designing and modeling building features. I am hoping to address a variety of issues that prevent buildings and infrastructure from implementing solar panel arrays either due to aesthetic choices, weather protection, and more. Using this tool, I envision designers to reach more clients and impact more lives engaging and encouraging them to adopt solar, gaining energy independence and contributing to the transition away from fossil fuels.

The logic implemented here follows a relatively simple but efficient scheme. First, a leaf shape is created by a set of 4 lines, each defined by a set of 3 points. After constructing one petal, I used Geometry.Rotate to create the various potential angled outputs of the leaf. The angle is set to a number slider so that the user can input a desired angle and the leaf will rotate accordingly. With a single leaf moving how I wanted, I then used Geometry.Rotate again to create a series of leaves along an inner circle centered at the origin. Once I had one layer done, I used Geometry.Translate and Geometry.scale to create a second, smaller layer mimicking the petal pattern of a real flower. Finally, with all leaf configurations made I used a familiar panelQuad logic to panelize each leaf.