Requirements

This is a brief overview of our requirements. For a more in-depth look at our requirements, please see the Requirements Document.

Functional

1. Our system needs to provide a way for users to securely create and manage accounts.
2. Users must be able to create and manage different projects.
3. Each project needs to consist of some identifying information and a map of the desired location.
4. A user needs to be able to insert locations and heights of different obstacles and solar modules.
5. A street view of the area, if available, should be shown to aid in this process.
6. The system needs to compute the shade cast onto a solar module, from the obstructions defined by the user.

Non-Functional

1. The algorithm for computing the shade, needs to be accurate to within 3%.
2. The user interface must be easy to use.

Environmental

1. The system shall be web based
2. The system must include Google Maps

High-Level Design

This is a brief overview of our current design plans for the project. For a more in-depth look at our design, please see the Design Document.

Architecture Overview

Our basic architecture for this project consists of the the front end website that the user sees and interacts with, and the Google App Engine, that handles the user databases, each users individual project database and the actual satellite shade calculator itself.

The calls made from the front end of the website will interact with the Google App Engine, which will handle the call, such as logging in, logging out, loading up project information, or whatever functionality the user wants. The response from the Google App Engine will be sent back to the front end with the appropriate response to update with.

For more detailed informations on the module and interfaces used to achieve this, check our linked design document above.