Randall Zamora

Hey Brian,

This looks like a really useful direction. Mapping cultivars on the property and tracking planting dates, yield and harvest windows is a different problem from most agroforestry design tools I have seen.

I have been working on TreeShadeAdvisor, which sits a bit upstream of farm management: laying out trees on a plot and simulating how shade moves across the site over time (spacing, orientation, canopy size), then inspecting the result in 2D and 3D with quantitative shade outputs. It is meant for coffee/cocoa shade, silvopasture, alley cropping and similar tree-based systems.

It does not replace a map like Protura. It answers a narrower question: where will the shade fall, and is it in the range you want?

Here is a screenshot of TreeShadeAdvisor in English:



If anyone here is already thinking about shade when they place trees, I would welcome feedback:
https://treeshadeadvisor.com

Randall

Hello,

I’m Randall, and I’ve been working on TreeShadeAdvisor, a tool for designing tree layouts and simulating how tree shade changes across a site over time.

It lets users test spacing, orientation, planting patterns and tree dimensions, then inspect the result in 2D and 3D with quantitative shade outputs.

Here is a shade-bands map from a real simulation:



I think it may be useful for agroforestry, silvopasture, alley cropping, coffee/cocoa systems, food forests and other tree-based designs where shade distribution matters.

I’m especially interested in feedback from people who actually design or manage these systems:
- Does this type of tool solve a real problem for you?
- What would you want it to do that it does not do today?
- What kind of scenario would you test first?

TreeShadeAdvisor:
https://treeshadeadvisor.com

I’d really appreciate any feedback, criticism or ideas.

Best,
Randall