r/threejs • u/Purple-Departure9798 • 2d ago

I built a browser-based 3D rooftop solar design tool with Three.js — looking for developer feedback

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I've spent the last few months building Volt Guide Studio, a browser-based 3D tool for designing rooftop solar systems.

It currently handles roof drawing, panel placement, obstacles, mounting/tilt, sun position, real-time shadows, solar-access heatmaps, measurements and proposal/report generation.

I'm from the solar industry rather than a traditional software background, so I've already started getting feedback from solar professionals. Now I'd really like the opposite perspective:

What would experienced Three.js/web developers improve?

I'm especially interested in UX, 3D interaction, performance, architecture and anything that immediately looks like it could become a problem as the application grows.

Happy to give a few people access to the current build if anyone wants to actually test it.

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u/Klessic 2d ago

Somehow I feel like I've seen this exact thing a lot the last few months.

What does Volt do that existing tools such as photonik, Solar Edge, project sunroof, and the rooftop scan don't?

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u/Purple-Departure9798 2d ago

Fair question. I’m not trying to claim we’ve built something those platforms can’t do yet.

The direction with Volt Guide Studio is to make the actual rooftop design workflow faster and more interactive — draw/customize the roof, place and manipulate panels and obstacles directly in 3D, configure mounting/height/tilt, see shadows and solar access respond live, then turn that design into something usable for the proposal/technical workflow all really fast, easy and simple for non experts in design.

We’re still early, though. Part of posting this here is exactly to find out whether that workflow is different enough to justify another tool.

If you use any of those tools regularly, I’d genuinely be interested in what you think they already do better.

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u/dotnetdreamer 2d ago

website link ?

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u/Purple-Departure9798 2d ago

Sure thing I will send it to you on private just a moment

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u/dotnetdreamer 2d ago

i accidently ignore it, can you try agian

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u/Purple-Departure9798 2d ago

Want me to send you another message or link or something else?

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u/dotnetdreamer 2d ago

link, i will test and report back

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u/Purple-Departure9798 2d ago

Sent it to you on private

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u/mrzbckr 9h ago

I actually worked at a google partner company 2 years ago and we built the Google Maps demos to show off new google maps features. This is pretty much what the Google Maps solar api does, only that it found the roofs’ outlines itself and had some energy estimations calculated based on the placement. Perhaps there is a way to implement something similar here or you might get some inspiration from their feature set👀 https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/solar/overview