shadeTrails

How to use shadeTrails

Navigate to your area using the search box or by panning the map
Set the date and time of your trip using the bar at the bottom — shadows update live as you drag the slider
Click A then tap the map to set your origin; click B for your destination
Hit Find and analyse routes — routes are ranked by shade coverage

Plan▾

Compare▸

Distance —

Walk time —

Info▸

SCOPE & ASSUMPTIONS

shadeTrails is an open-source, proof of concept tool exploring urban walking navigation informed by environmental intelligence. Routing and shading results are approximate and depend on the underlying dataset, which may vary in quality and completeness by city. The project is intended to explore potential rather than provide scientifically validated environmental analysis.

It is shared openly for experimentation and distributed as-is. If you encounter issues or would like to contribute, feel free to get in touch.

Route shade scoring

Each route is sampled into evenly spaced points. At each point, the ShadeMap SDK tests whether it falls in sun or shade at the simulated time. Points are coloured teal (shade) or yellow (sun) along the route. The shade score is the percentage of sampled points in shadow.

Temporal correction

Each sample point is tagged with the walking time to reach it (at 5 km/h). The far end of a 30-min walk is evaluated 30 min later than the start — correcting a systematic bias common in shade routing tools.

Data sources

Shadow computation — ShadeMap SDK (shademap.app)
Routing — Valhalla / OpenStreetMap
Map tiles — OpenFreeMap

by Giulio Dini