Intended users
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.
Need you’re trying to provide a solution or support for
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.
Inputs
- Number of leaves - panel arrays
- Leaf angle
- Inner radius (which the leaves surround)
- Number of levels (sets of concentric leaves)
Underlying logic of the model you’ll implement
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.
Outputs
- Set of Adaptive Components (panelized)
- Set of angled leaf surfaces