Shadepoint

This plugin uses the Geodesignhub API to download information about a design and / or diagrams to analyze it to produce a variety of views around heat and shade impacts at a local level.

Adding your project

This plugin can be added to your project in the Administration interface or at the time of Geodesignhub project creation.

Details

This plugin provides analytical capability for any diagram and design from Geodesignhub as a one-click integration, we use the API to download all the data.

Setup

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12+
• uv — install via curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
• PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension
• Redis

Install dependencies

uv sync

Environment variables

Copy the sample env file and fill in your values:

cp .env.sample.txt .env

Key variables:

Variable	Description
DB_ENGINE	Database engine (e.g. postgresql)
DB_USERNAME	Database user
DB_PASSWORD	Database password
DB_NAME	Database name
DB_HOSTNAME	Database host
DB_PORT	Database port (default 5432)
REDIS_URL	Redis connection URL
maptiler_key	MapTiler API key

Initial Database setup

Create an initial database.

Log in to the database as user postgres, from command line:

psql -U postgres

Then create the new database via commands below.

CREATE DATABASE localclimateresponse;
ALTER DATABASE localclimateresponse SET search_path=public,postgis,contrib;
\connect localclimateresponse;
CREATE SCHEMA postgis;
CREATE EXTENSION postgis SCHEMA postgis;
CREATE USER localclimateresponse;
ALTER ROLE localclimateresponse WITH PASSWORD 'localclimateresponse';
GRANT all privileges ON DATABASE localclimateresponse TO localclimateresponse;
ALTER DATABASE localclimateresponse OWNER TO localclimateresponse;

Run migrations and update database

uv run flask --app app db upgrade

Seed the database

uv run flask --app app seed-db

Start the app

uv run flask --app app run

Start the background worker

uv run python worker.py

Motivation

The overall objective of this project is to develop a set of tools to focus on heat response at a local scale. This dashboard will be flexible and will be used as a plugin to Geodesignhub and will analyze data provided by Geodesignhub. In addition, it will connect to external data platforms to download layers and data.

In addition to the metrics, a summary page would be generated for a design that presents a summary analysis of the metrics developed.

Shadow Analysis / Heat Response

We focus on heat / shadow and management response.

Screenshots

Shadows and trees

Analysis of generated shadows

3/30/300 Rule

Shadepoint implements the 3/30/300 urban greening standard across two views.

What is the 3/30/300 rule?

Rule	Target	Description
Rule 3	See 3 trees	Every resident should be able to see at least 3 trees from home or work
Rule 30	30% canopy cover	30% of a neighbourhood should be covered by tree canopy
Rule 300	Within 300 m	Every resident should live within 300 m of a green space ≥ 1 ha

Draw Trees view (/draw_trees/)

A live compliance dashboard appears below the map as soon as the first tree is drawn. It updates on every add, move, or delete:

• Rule 3 — average number of trees visible within 50 m of each drawing point (uses building centroids if the Buildings layer is present, otherwise falls back to tree-to-tree proximity)
• Rule 30 — canopy percentage over the project bounding box; draws on drawn-tree canopy (default 5 m diameter) plus any pre-existing canopy from the Existing Canopy layer
• Rule 300 — worst-case distance from any drawn tree to the nearest green space centroid from the Green Spaces layer

A Data Layers status panel shows which named FGB layers were detected and which rules are active or unavailable.

Design Shadow view (/design_shadow/)

A 300 m green-space reach heatmap renders semi-transparent green halos around every tree in the design. Areas inside a halo are within 300 m of a planned tree. The same Data Layers panel lists which FGB layers are present.

Required FGB analytical layers

The computations depend on specific FGB layer names configured in the project. Names are matched case-insensitively.

FGB Layer Name	Used for	Required?
Existing Canopy	Rule 30 — adds pre-existing canopy area to coverage total	Optional
Green Spaces	Rule 300 — source of green space polygon centroids	Required for Rule 300
Buildings	Rule 3 — building footprints for window-visibility check	Required for Rule 3

If a required layer is absent the corresponding rule shows "Layer unavailable" rather than failing silently. Click the ⓘ icon next to the Data Layers heading on either page for a quick-reference table of the expected names.

Compatible with NBSAPI

This application is fully compatible with NBSAPI, allowing seamless integration and data exchange. For more information, please visit the NBSAPI website.