☕🌞 It’s finally sunny in London, and like most people, I wanted to enjoy an iced coffee or a pint in the actual sun — not tucked away in the shade.

So I built a web app that shows you cafés and pubs currently in sunlight, using real-time shadow simulation, Mapbox, and open data from OpenStreetMap.

It simulates how buildings and terrain cast shadows throughout the day, so you can find the sunniest spots around you — and skip the cold corners.

It’s a design experiment, a side project, and a bit of summer fun:

→ https://sunnydays.dawodx.com/

Built with:
• Mapbox GL JS
• Turf.js
• Overpass API
• Shadow simulation with terrain + building height

Let me know what you think — feedback, feature ideas, or pub recs are always welcome!





by dawodx

46 comments

  1. Woah this is so cool – going to be checking this out tomorrow

  8. Was this inspired by the thread the other day about the times the Westminster Bridge dongs were visible?!

    Great work!

  9. What about estimating how much *longer*they’ll be in the sun? Eh? There’s your winner…

  18. This appears to work everywhere, not just London! Great work!

  22. I was walking around Ghent a week ago looking at G Maps closely trying to figure out exactly this… What a great app idea aha
    Sunshine coffee and beers here we come!

  25. This is a fantastic idea, as well as implementation and UX – straight to the bookmarks!

    How does a pub get added to the map? Currently your map is missing more than half, maybe even 2/3rds of the pubs in Clerkenwell and Shoreditch… although the shadows simulator is so good that maybe it’s best to keep them to myself 😉

  27. Wow! You can probably sell this to a big tech company or a travel company for millions of dollars!

  28. I like your thinking, sweet i shall check it out, being a 58 yr old London Geezer i do like to sit in the Sun,☀️ especially with a pint

  30. I need this in dubai but I’ll be looking for the ‘yay there are 10 places in the shade’ notification

  35. It’s great but it seems to be missing some pubs in East London sadly 🙁

  36. Holy shit. Amazing.

    How up to date are the buildings in the web app?

  39. My only problem is most of the pubs in my area aren’t on it 

  40. This is genius – thank you!
    I’m going to ignore that it’s been raining all day in London and start planning my next beer

  45. This is what the internet was made for, unbelievable stuff

  46. So I’ll point out my experience just using it. Horniman Pub by London Bridge, 4:15pm today. Say’s it’s in the sun when clearly it’s the shadow. The problem is the location of the marker which is slightly off. Also it doesn’t seem to care that a north facing pub will be in it’s own shade.

    It’s a nice idea but I’m not sure how accurate it really is

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