Abstract
Urban solar radiation is a primary factor affecting indoor and outdoor thermal and lighting comfort. However, although 3D solar radiation models are achieving remarkable advances in urban climate planning support and decision making, they are time-consuming and cost-intensive. We aim at compensating for such limitations by providing an agile approach to estimate shadows and solar radiation on building facades, using elevation models (2.5D) and image processing techniques. This is achieved by making the best use of the new visibility toolset for raster processing, provided in ArcGIS, and GRASS GIS solar radiation 2D model. Results give a clear and detailed picture of the radiation condition in the study area, which offers promising opportunities for urban solar planning and assessment in complex urban areas.
Highlights
In urban areas, solar radiation is a key factor affecting indoor and outdoor human thermal and lighting comfort
We present an integrated, agile geographical information systems (GIS)-based approach to improve the efficacy of 3D intermediate solar radiation models, to work in very dense and complex urban areas
Test dataset Since the aim of this paper is to introduce an intermediate effective assessment for the solar radiation on building facades at the micro and local scale, using 2.5D models and image processing techniques, we tested this approach in a compact squared area of 450 meters wide in central Milan, Italy, where a 1m Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was retrieved from the vector database of building footprints
Summary
Solar radiation is a key factor affecting indoor and outdoor human thermal and lighting comfort. This depends mainly on urban geometry and the building envelope design and its materials in terms of thermal properties. The question arises: Can architects and planners be better informed about urban materials implications (as major determinants for the nocturnal UHI as well as the overheating in buildings)?. Over the last two decades solar radiation and shadow models, incorporated into geographical information systems (GIS), have achieved remarkable advances in processing large urban areas with complex morphology [3,4]. In 2015, Freitas et al published a full and comprehensive review for the literature of solar radiation tools and models that simulate the solar potential either at the micro-scale of architecture or at the local and macro-scale of urban areas [5]
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