Sun Exposure
Sun Exposure shows how sunlight moves across the landscape throughout the day, helping you understand when specific areas receive direct sun or remain in shade. This makes it easier to identify bedding areas, feeding zones, and travel routes that animals prefer based on temperature, wind, and thermal conditions. By visualizing sun patterns on the terrain, hunters can better predict how wildlife will use different parts of the landscape at different times of day.
Understand Sun and Shade
Sun Exposure is an interactive map layer that shows how sunlight moves across the landscape throughout the day and across different months of the year. By adjusting the time and date, users can visualize which areas receive direct sunlight and which remain shaded based on terrain, slope, and the position of the sun. Because the feature accounts for sunrise and sunset at your specific location, it provides an accurate representation of how light and shadow interact with the landscape at any given time.
For hunters, this provides valuable insight into how animals use the terrain. Sun exposure often plays a major role in where game chooses to bed, travel, and feed. During warmer parts of the season, deer and other game frequently seek cooler north-facing slopes, shaded benches, and areas protected from direct sunlight. Being able to quickly identify these locations on a map helps narrow down likely bedding areas and travel corridors that might otherwise be overlooked.
Sun exposure also helps users better understand thermals and wind behavior throughout the day. As sunlight warms different parts of the landscape, air currents begin to shift, influencing how scent moves through an area. By visualizing when slopes receive sunlight and begin to warm, hunters can better anticipate when thermals will rise, fall, or change direction, allowing for smarter stand placement, access routes, and overall hunting strategy.
When combined with other layers such as terrain, vegetation, and aerial imagery, the Sun Exposure feature helps reveal how sunlight, terrain, and thermals work together. This deeper understanding of the landscape allows hunters to make more informed decisions and plan their approach with greater confidence.
Sun Exposure is available on our web app only and is not on the mobile version of the app at this time.
