Your Designs Now See the Shade

By SubcontractorHub Editorial Team·Published October 2026

Shade decides how much a solar system produces, and production decides the quote. So when a design doesn't match the trees actually on site, the quote doesn't either.

Starting today, it can. The SubcontractorHub design tool now lets you add and remove trees right on the design, and every new design runs on our own 3D shading simulation. Edit a tree, click Done, and production updates for the whole roof.

"We're taking that tree down"

Every rep has heard it at the kitchen table. Until now, there wasn't much you could do with it. If a tree had been cut down, was missing from the imagery, or was coming out before install, the design kept shading the roof as if nothing had changed.

Now you can make that change on the spot, inside the proposal, and show the homeowner what it does to production. The quote matches the real site, and there are fewer surprises after the sale.

"Reps shouldn't have to explain why the design doesn't match the yard they're standing in. Now they can fix it in a few clicks, show the homeowner the new production number, and keep the conversation moving."

What's new

Add and remove trees

To add a tree, draw a circle, pick a sphere or cone shape, and set its height, crown diameter, trunk diameter and crown height. The tree updates live as you go.

To remove one, select its area with free draw, a circle or a polygon. The tool flattens it to the height you choose (ground level by default), so you can draw facets and place panels there. It all works in both 2D and 3D.

Our own 3D shading simulation

New designs calculate production with a shading simulation we built in-house. It uses weather for every hour of a typical year, all 8,760 of them, and shows sunlight maps for each month and the full year. After you edit trees or roof facets, click Done and the tool recalculates irradiance and production for the whole roof.

Shading for ground and flat mounts

Ground- and flat-mounted panels now get their production from the same simulation, so there's no more entering shading by hand. Rows shade each other, and you can set the row spacing and starting height.

What about existing designs?

They stay exactly as they are, with the same mode and the same estimates. New designs start in the new Default mode automatically, with Default, Default (Blank) and NREL (Manual Design) to choose from. You can still switch an existing design's mode from the Mode menu; switching starts that design over.

Try it

Open a new design, find a tree and edit it.

Book a Demo