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Made with Archi Automate · Sun study

Times Square, sun hours on 21 June

Hours of direct sun on every 2 m of the streets around Times Square through the longest day, computed by Archi Automate on OpenStreetMap context and recorded straight from the Archi Automate viewer.

From the modelAvailable

The Archi Automate viewer, recorded straight from the tool with viewer_record. No post-production.

Sun hours · 21 June

Wind speed-up · 4 directions

What you get

The study opens in the Archi Automate viewer, which ships with the MCP. Scrub the day with the time slider, switch between sun hours and sun and shadow, change the view.

The Archi Automate viewer, as the user sees it: top view, sun hours since sunrise, at 15:00. The assistant set the view and pinned the colour range.

Sun and shadow through the day

09:00 UTC−4
12:00 UTC−4
15:00 UTC−4
18:00 UTC−4

Captured from the Archi Automate viewer. Yellow: in sun at that moment. Blue-grey: in shadow.

Method

Archi Automate output, unretouched. The clip comes straight out of the Archi Automate viewer: viewer_record rendered each frame from the sun study’s time series. It is not a screen capture, and the title, legend, compass, scale bar and site clock are drawn by the viewer. The whole day, 05:30 to 20:30 New York summer time (UTC−4), runs in 10 seconds. Colours are hours of direct sun since sunrise, from 0 to 15 h, the longest possible day at this site in 15-minute steps. The square tile loop is different: viewer_record only records 16:9, so it is 61 viewer captures, one per 15-minute step, joined into a video with ffmpeg; it shows the last 8 seconds of the day.

How it was made: ifc_import_context brought 1,127 OpenStreetMap elements within 350 m into a new IFC model in 33 seconds, including the towers with their setbacks. One of them was an underground station that the importer had raised as a 9 m block 435 by 554 m across the streets; the assistant deleted it with ifc_run_write_task and added 13,302 ground tiles of 2 m. sim_sun then computed the sun on every tile and element every 15 minutes on 21 June 2026. The study ran on Archi Automate 27.35, three times while the tile grid was redrawn north up and the station was removed. The recording was made on 27.36, from the same results. Between the towers the tiles average 2.9 hours of sun (median 2.75 h, at most 9.5 h); 919 tiles get none.

Between the 15-minute steps the viewer blends the hours and the clock runs on. During the day it also draws the shadow of that moment over the running total, so tiles in shade at that moment look a little darker than the legend. After sunset the colours match the legend on 99.8% of visible tiles.

Limits

  • 17 buildings and building parts have no height in OpenStreetMap and use a 9 m default, among them 11 Times Square, the Exxon Building and part of the W Times Square hotel, so their shadows are far too short.
  • Sun hours are counted per 2 m tile from one point at its centre, and per element for buildings; context buildings are shown grey, not analysed.
  • This is an analysis aid, not a planning or daylight report.

The prompt

Using the Archi Automate MCP, start a new IFC model and import the OpenStreetMap context within [350 m] of [Times Square, New York] with ifc_import_context. Check the import for outlines far larger than a city block and delete any that are not buildings above ground, such as an underground station. Add 2 m ground tiles over [the streets and plazas], north up, raised just above the imported road and square slabs. Run sim_sun for [21 June 2026] from [sunrise] to [sunset] every [15 minutes], in the site's time zone, with the time series on. Show the result in the Archi Automate viewer: top view, orthographic, north up, cumulative sun hours with the range pinned from 0 to the longest possible day. Record the day with viewer_record at [2560 × 1440], 60 fps. List the buildings that have no height in OpenStreetMap and use the default.
Not a transcript. The study was run in one working session directed in conversation; this task restates it. Values in [brackets] are yours to change. The assistant wrote the 2 m tiles and deleted the station outline itself with ifc_run_write_task. viewer_record and the viewer's legend, clock and compass came in Archi Automate 27.36; the import and sun study ran on 27.35.
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MCP calls, in order

  1. ifc_create_model
  2. ifc_import_context
  3. ifc_run_write_task
  4. ifc_save
  5. export_scene
  6. sim_sun
  7. viewer_show
  8. viewer_set
  9. viewer_record

Provenance

Recorded production details
modelClaude Opus 5.5 (assistant). No image or video model; the colours are computed sun hours.
timesim_sun 200 s for the June run; viewer_record 12 s
date2026-11-08

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. Computed on Archi Automate 27.35 and recorded on 27.36, directed by Claude Opus 5.5. No image or video model: the colours are computed sun hours.