Sun Path Diagrams is an application that outputs, as png images, the horizontal and vertical sun path diagrams. The input parameters are completed using a GUI built with Tkinter. The algorithms and formulas used to calculate the sun position were taken from the paper 'Solar position algorithm for solar radiation applications' (I. Reda, A. Andreas, 2003).
Create a virtual environment, activate it and run the command below in your terminal:
pip install sun-path-diagrams
Once the installation process is finished, run
sun-path-diagrams
in your terminal and the Sun Path Diagrams GUI should appear. The input parameters in the GUI are (hopefully) self-explanatory. Note that there is input validation built in the GUI but it is not exhaustive.
Some extra notes:
- The minimum year is 1900 and the maximum is 2100
- The image files are automatically named as VerticalSunPath_year-month-day.png and HorizontalSunPath_year-month-day.png where year-month-day is the date for which the sun-path is calculated
- The resolution of the output images is 800x800 pixels, enough for most reports or presentations
- The plotting data is saved (if selected) as a csv file with the fields: dates, azimuths and altitudes. There are 365/366 records (one for each day of the year) and the azimuths and altitudes contain 24 values each (for every hour of the day). The csv file is named SunPositions_year-month-day.csv
The graphical use interface:
An example of an horizontal sun path diagram:
An example of a vertical sun path diagram:
- 1.0.0
- First working release
The Sun Path Diagrams app is available under the GNU General Public License