My exercise of mulling ideas over in my head for days on end brought me to a lightbulb moment when contemplating how a shade sail might work for our horses in the small paddock. How might I simulate what it will look like in order to figure out an optimal size and location? In my head, I’ve been troubling over the lack of a single defined parameter. Too many moving parts.

To figure out the size of the sail needed, measure precisely between the posts. There are no posts yet.

To figure out where the posts should be, calculate it from the size of the sail. I don’t have a sail size determined.

Lightbulb moment: My son, Julian, has done some 3D simulations of spaces. What if…?

He knew right away I would be surprised by the possibilities available in the supercomputer I carry around in my pocket. He pointed me to an app that collects LiDAR scans via the camera in my iPhone.

Having zero familiarity with the operation of the app features, I clumsily made a first attempt at collecting a scan Julian could use to then add a simulated sail canopy. I collected a 3D image of the paddock and sent it to him.

That didn’t work for what we were trying to do.

He was able to point me to the preferred settings to scan the environment with LiDAR. With no experience, I walked back and forth to collect enough of the small paddock to encompass the area I hope to shade. Mia was at the waterer, so I tried including her in the scan, but she kept turning to see what I was doing. It barely picked up the vague shape of a horse.

Far from perfect, it worked well enough for our purposes. I shared the image to Julian’s email, and he was able to take the file and add the rough geometry of a shade structure with controls to move the orientation of the virtual sun and see where the shadow would end up.

Brilliant! And fascinating! Since we got this far after such a short time, I asked if he could twist the position of the shade structure to align better with my current thinking about location. Julian asked if there were any other changes to include while he was at it. Well, as long as he asked…

I sent him several images of the types of shade sails I’m considering to see if he could more closely match the shape. He asked about color, and I chose a green like the barn and hay shed roofs.

In less than 24 hours, we had a mockup that blows my mind. There are keyboard controls that allow movement of the size and position of the sail, adjustment of the viewing angle, and moving the direction of the sunlight.

From the phone in my pocket and his experience with 3D software, we have a visual of what was in my head.

That wasn’t just a lightbulb moment I had. It was a lightning bolt!

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