I’m constantly working to improve the visual renderings of our 3D computerized solar designs. We have mastered the art of taking aerial imagery and making three dimensional roofs on which we can display solar panels. However, one of the biggest challenges is modeling screened pool cages that are ubiquitous in Southwest Florida. Ideally we would just build a box with a raised mansard roof, but that doesn’t provide enough detail to render shade and suggest depth of the aluminum structure. This is important because often solar pool heating panels are mounted on a roof above a pool cage, and what people don’t realize is that the panels are often greatly obscured or masked by the structure and screening. The solar panels often essentially blend in to the surroundings.

In the images below I have rendered a scene with and without the pool cage. You can see a big difference, right!

Unfortunately, right now it generally doubles the time to build a 3D computer model when adding the pool cage. That makes the process very inefficient, so we usually leave that step out in favor of focusing on the roof and system sizing. In the future we hope to develop tools to quickly model a pool cage, even if it isn’t perfectly representative of the actual pool cage on site. I just think it adds so much more interest to the final renderings of solar panel designs.

Solar pool heating panel design with screened pool cage.

Solar pool heating panel design without screened pool cage shown.