The Shadows of the World

I don't know about you but at the moment I'm trying to live most of my social life outdoors. I have therefore been thinking a lot about which bars and restaurants have outdoor seating. In choosing where to eat & drink outside I have also been thinking about which bars and restaurants have seating in the evening sun and where you can sit in the shade during the daytime to avoid the glare of the midday sun.

Shadowmap is an interactive 3D map which allows you to view the location of building shadows around the world for any time of day and on any day of the year. If you want to know what kind of shade you will have (if any) at a certain time and place then you can just look up the location on Shadowmap, enter the date and time of day, and Shadowmap will show you the shadows that will be cast by nearby buildings at that precise moment.

Shadowmap uses OpenStreetMap data with a global 3D building overlay. The map includes a simple to use slide control which allows you to view the shadows cast by the buildings for any time of day. If you slide this control back and forth you can watch as the shadows cast by the buildings move back around on the map. If you subscribe to Shadowmap Pro you also get access to the date control which allows you to change the date so that you can view the shadow positions for a specific day.

If you live in New York then you can also use the New York Times' Mapping the Shadows of New York City interactive map to visualize the shadows cast by the city's famous skyscrapers (and all of its other buildings as well) during the different seasons. 

In Denmark you can use Septima Skyggekort, an interactive map which visualizes the shadows cast by Denmark's buildings at any hour of the day and for any day of the year. This map was created using the OpenLayers mapping library using height data from Styrelsen for DataForsyning og Effektivisering, the public data agency of the Danish government.

Cool Walks is a really useful route-planning tool which can help you find walking routes across Barcelona which prioritize shady sidewalks and the locations of drinking fountains. Enter your starting point and destination into Cool Walks and it will show you a route which avoids direct sunlight as much as possible. The map includes a shadows layer which allows you to see for yourself where building shadows will be cast at different times of the day.