solshade is a Python toolkit for simulating solar radiation across landscapes, accounting for terrain shadows, solar angles, and orbital geometry. It’s designed for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of astronomy, glaciology, botany, and geology. Capturing the dance of sol (Sun) and shade (Shadow) over landscapes.

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What does solshade do?

• Computes per-pixel solar exposure over time from a DEM
• Generates terrain-aware horizon maps to determine shadowing
• Uses precise solar ephemerides (via Skyfield)
• Calculates:
  • Total annual insolation
  • Date of maximum sunlight
  • Mean solar incidence angle
  • Terrain shading based on real orbital paths

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solshade is designed to install cleanly with a single invocation of the standard Python package tool:

pip install solshade

Here are some essential project links:

• Home page and documentation
• Installing solshade
• Getting started with solshade
• solshade package on PyPI
• Issue tracker on github

Example Applications

• Studying microhabitats in extreme environments
• Predicting snowmelt timing in complex terrain
• Understanding glacial melt and shadowed regions
• Modeling plant growing seasons across topography

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License

MIT License — see LICENSE file.

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Acknowledgments

Inspired by many interesting conversations with Anna O'Flynn, Anthony Zerafa & Chris Omelon at the McGill Arctic Research Station (MARS) on Axel Heiberg Island, 2025.