Visualisation studio · since 1996
Evidence first. Pictures optional.
Councils get a shadow report they can assess. Tell us at the start if renders and sales collateral are coming too, and we build that model to carry straight through to them.
- Practising since1996 · 30 years
- ClientsCouncils, developers, architects
- Shadow setsJune 21 · 9am–3pm · 1:200
- TurnaroundFrom 3 business days
Single dwelling · exterior
What we do
Quality that holds up, and a model you keep using. Colours, materials and furnishings change without rebuilding it — new cladding, a different scheme, another viewpoint, all re-rendered from the same file. A site modelled to that level of detail stops being a one-off cost and becomes an asset: a digital twin of the project, for as long as it runs.
Shadow report
Hourly shadow plates and private open space assessments drawn against the planning scheme, with neighbouring dwellings modelled rather than guessed. Written so an assessor can read it once, and defended when the RFI comes back.
Renders & sales collateralOptional
Exterior and interior stills, aerial flythroughs, doll's-house plans, day and dusk variants. Worth flagging at the start: knowing renders are coming changes how the shadow model gets built, and it then carries through to them. Same geometry either way, so the scheme the buyer sees is the scheme that was assessed.
Embedded visualisation
For large projects we work inside your team — your files, your standards, your review cycle — instead of quoting image by image while the design keeps moving.
SketchUp plugins & bespoke software
VisiShadow and MagicMesh came out of this work and are sold to the people doing the same job. Beyond that we build to order: web apps, native macOS tools, APIs, integrations.
A model, not a picture
Everything on this page comes out of one measured, located, three-dimensional model of the real site. Nothing is illustrated, nothing is approximated, and nothing is generated. That is what lets a council accept it as evidence — and it means the survey, the terrain, the levels, the neighbours and the sun are done once and stay done, whatever the building on top of them ends up being.
Accurate
Built to real dimensions from survey data and the planning scheme, not eyeballed from a photograph. Every surface is measurable geometry, so a number taken off the model is a number you can defend in an assessment.
Geolocated
The model sits on its actual coordinates, with true north and the real sun path for that latitude. The shadows are where the sun puts them on that site, on that date — which is what makes a shadow report evidence rather than an illustration.
Adjustable
Materials, camera angles and anything placed in the scene are a swap — new cladding or finishes, another viewpoint, different furniture, cars or planting, and every image re-renders from the same file. Built form is modelling work: windows, rooflines and cladding are revisions, and a new floorplan means the building is modelled again. What does not get redone is the site under it.
Nothing is invented
Every element in the frame is there because it was modelled — a wall because there is a wall, a shadow because that is where the sun puts it on that day. Nothing is filled in to look convincing, and nothing is approximated to save time. Point at any part of the image and ask what it is, and there is an answer.
Real-time and VR output
Because it is a model, it does not stop at stills. The same geometry walks through in real time, or in a headset, for a design review, a panel presentation or a display suite.
The same hands throughout
One studio carries a project from the first site model to the last image. The model is built here and stays here, so a revision is a conversation rather than a brief handed down a queue — and the detail you asked for three months ago is still in the file.
Worth deciding early
There are two ways to build a shadow model. The lean one carries only the massing that casts the shadow — enough to prove compliance, and deliberately crude, because almost nothing a render needs is in it. The other goes in at render detail from the first day, with the scene structured for what comes next.
A shadow set, as issued
Seven plates per site, 9am to 3pm on June 21 — the shortest day of the year. If the private open space holds its sunlight then, it holds it all year. Proposed building in amber, private open space in green, cast shadow in grey, every neighbour modelled in full.
Some samples of our work
Subdivisions, unit developments, single dwellings and interiors across Tasmania — the same models carried from the planning submission through to the display suite.
Subdivisions & unit developments
Dwellings & interiors
The tools that drew everything above
The shadow plates on this page came out of our own SketchUp plugins. We wrote them because the work needed them, then sold them to everyone doing the same job.
VisiShadow
Shadow analysis inside SketchUp. Sun positions, hourly plates and private open space calculations run against the model you already built — the same engine that drew every plate in the shadow study above.
- Private open space shadowing
- Neighbouring overshadowing
- Overhanging building diagrams
- Time range analysis
- Date presets
- Shadow animation
MagicMesh
Mesh generation and repair for survey data and terrain. Broken boundaries get fixed and contours become geometry that will actually cast a shadow, instead of fighting the model.
- Rock-solid stability
- Fix broken boundaries
- Multiple mesh strategies
- Multi-shape support
- Boundary conforming
- Line style options
Bespoke software
When a workflow has no product behind it, we write the product — web apps, native macOS and iOS tools, APIs, cloud hosting and integrations. Both plugins above started that way.
- Web apps
- macOS & iOS
- APIs
- Cloud hosting
- Integrations
Contact
Send a site plan and a deadline.
Usually enough for a fixed price. We answer within one business day.