Analysis Mode — Sun Hours, Shadow Range & Privacy

Open the section switcher and choose Analysis when your account includes the required feature. You cannot add or edit the garden design itself here — Analysis has no drawing tools. The viewpoints and Screen advisor checks you place in Analysis are a separate kind of object, and those ARE selectable, movable and editable, same as any other canvas (see the next step). Ordinary rendering light is separate from the sampled analysis results.

The left toolbar in Analysis offers the same shared Select, Lasso select and Pan (H) cluster every other canvas uses — drawing tools are unavailable here, since Analysis cannot add or edit garden design objects. Use Select or Lasso select to work with Analysis's own objects: click a placed viewpoint or a completed Screen advisor check to select it, Shift-click or Ctrl/Cmd-click to add or remove one from the selection, or drag a rectangle or a freeform lasso to select several at once. Drag a selected viewpoint to reposition it — the privacy heatmap updates live as you drag. Below that cluster sit three analysis entry points: Sun analysis (Sun hours and Zones are two display styles of the same result, switched with the pill at the top of the canvas once Sun analysis is active, not separate buttons), Place viewpoint, and Screen advisor. Click a tool to switch the active study; the right inspector and the on-canvas legend update to match. There is no separate button for the privacy heatmap itself — it appears automatically as soon as you place a viewpoint.

Choose Sun analysis to view sampled hours of direct sun on the selected day (this is its default display style, Sun hours). Read Sun hours / day, the grid-cell size and the Insights distribution. The shade/part-sun/full-sun interpretation uses under 3 hours, 3–6 hours and 6 hours or more. These are analysis bands, not a guarantee that a plant or site has the conditions it needs.

With Sun analysis active, switch the pill at the top of the canvas to Zones to view Direct sun / day bands for the selected date and site instead of the raw hours heatmap. Read the Full sun, Part sun and Shade legend. This is a daily direct-sun classification, not just the shadow at one instant; the lighting preview and time control serve a different purpose.

Use Lighting for the time-of-day SkyDial and Physical/Free sun controls. Physical lighting follows site location, date and time; Free lets you move the lighting sun manually and hides physical sun-time readouts. Use Season or Specific date to choose the analysis date. Sunrise, Solar noon, Sunset and Day length use local solar time, not a guarantee of the device’s civil-clock time.

The Insights tab shows how the garden is distributed across the sun zones, so you can see at a glance how much of the site is in shade versus full sun. It also includes a Light through foliage control, from Solid (full shade) to Open, that lets you explore how dense or open planting changes the picture — useful when you are deciding between a solid evergreen and a lighter, deciduous canopy.

Use Location to check Site location and Site north. Change these in Settings → Site & location. Sun and shadow results are withheld until a site location is set. Read geometry-detail warnings: a design too detailed to analyze fully may under-represent some objects.

Choose Place viewpoint and click where the viewer looks from. This switches to the privacy study. The heatmap and How many neighbours can see each spot legend show modeled visibility from the placed points. Switch to Select (or Lasso select) afterwards to click a placed viewpoint and reselect it, Shift/Ctrl-click or marquee/lasso-drag to select several, or drag one to a new spot — the heatmap updates live. Viewpoints are kept for this session only: save a report to keep a result.

Open Line of sight. Viewer height sets the default for new viewpoints; individual viewpoints have their own height controls, including Default (follows the shared Viewer height), Ground and Upstairs presets. Target height sets the height of the point being assessed. Use each point’s removal control or Clear to remove all. Move a point out of a wall or roof if the inside-geometry warning appears.

Choose Screen advisor and follow the three prompts: choose the viewer, the spot to protect and the screen position (type coordinates in the sidebar, click in the drawing, or drag the screen in the top-down or side-view panel that appears — all three are interchangeable at any step). The result reports the height needed to block that view, and a width too once either end is widened: set Viewer stretch or Target width above zero to check a run of windows or a path of passers-by instead of a single point. The top-down panel's green/red fan marks which part of that view is already blocked versus still open. Each completed check is kept, so you can run several without losing earlier results; switch to Select and click a kept result's marker to reselect it and reopen its details, or remove one with its own trash icon, or use Clear all to start fresh. This analysis does not create a physical screen object or guarantee privacy from viewpoints that were not tested.

Wait for the active study to finish, then open the top-bar Screenshot menu. Choose the Save action named for the active study: Sun-Hours Analysis, Shadow-Range Analysis or Line-of-Sight Analysis. Its title can also include the analyzed date or viewpoint count. The action is unavailable without a current result or while computation is running. Check the save notification. A saved report is a snapshot; generate a new report after changing the design or study settings.