Solar design & simulation · Site capture
12 of the 100 products we researched carry this capability, 11 of them at the depth we code as advanced. For 2 more we searched the vendor’s own pages and found no statement either way.
Building a three-dimensional model of the roof and everything on it — planes, pitches, azimuths, vents, chimneys, skylights — from imagery, LIDAR, drone capture or a manual trace.
Verified against the vendor’s own pages.
Every downstream number depends on this model. Panel layout, shading, yield and the proposal all inherit its errors, so a tool that captures the roof badly cannot be rescued by a good simulation engine further down the pipeline.
4 of the 12 products that carry it publish a price you can check before contacting sales.
Every phrase below appeared on a vendor’s own site during research and was mapped onto the
single canonical capability 3D roof and obstruction model. The count is how many products used
that exact wording — which is why searching for any one of them finds only a fraction of
the market.
Depth is coded per capability, not on a universal scale, so “advanced” means something specific to this one feature and nothing at all across features.
Basic
A roof can be traced and given a pitch and azimuth, producing a usable plane set without automated capture or detailed obstruction geometry.
Advanced
The model is built from measured data — LIDAR, photogrammetry or drone capture — with obstructions represented as geometry the shading engine consumes.
Not a ranking — no product on this site is scored. Ordered by the depth we could verify, then alphabetically.
Trace Software International
A French PV design and simulation suite sold in four capacity-banded tiers — free up to 9 kWp, then €990 / €1,490 / €1,990 per year excluding tax — with Meteonorm weather data, 3D modelling, SketchUp and Revit plugins, DXF/KML/GeoJSON export and a direct handoff into the vendor's electrical-calculation products.
Arka360
Design & simulation · Web
A 3D solar design, proposal and lead-management platform, originally Indian and now selling into the US with an attached permit-plan-set and PE-stamp service arm.
Midsummer
Design & simulation · Web
A UK-only, MCS-oriented solar design and sales tool that is free at the base tier and £35/month for Pro, published by a solar wholesaler — so the kit list it produces drops straight into a trade order with live pricing and next-day delivery.
Enact Systems Inc.
Design & simulation · Web
A design-through-monitoring solar platform that, since acquiring PVComplete in January 2026, sells its own web design and proposal tool alongside PVComplete's AutoCAD-based engineering product and an asset-management/fleet-monitoring layer.
Nearmap Ltd
Imagery & remote survey · Web
A subscription aerial-imagery and AI property-data business whose imagery, 3D models and APIs sit underneath other people's solar design tools rather than being a solar tool itself.
PVComplete
A four-product solar engineering suite — PVSketch and PVCAD for rooftop/C&I, PVSketch MEGA and PVCAD MEGA for ground mount — whose distinguishing feature is that PVCAD runs *inside* AutoCAD, so the permit drawing and the PV model are the same file.
Reslink Technologies Private Limited
Design & simulation · Web
A mobile-first 3D solar design and proposal platform for Indian EPCs that claims to take a rooftop from satellite imagery to a bill of materials and a signed-ready proposal without a site visit.
Scanifly, Inc.
Design & simulation · Web · iOS · Android
A two-phase solar design platform: a satellite/LiDAR remote design tool for sales, plus drone photogrammetry that rebuilds the roof as a to-scale 3D model so the design that was sold is the design that gets installed.
Scanifly
A tiered done-for-you design desk that works inside your own Scanifly account — from a 3-hour remote site model up to a plan set with engineering stamps in under 48 hours — built around drone-derived 3D models rather than satellite imagery.
SMA Solar Technology AG
Design & simulation · Web
A German inverter manufacturer's PV planning tool, free in two tiers and €600/year for a third, covering on-grid and off-grid design, 3D visual roof planning with shading analysis, profitability, and quotation output.
SurgePV Technologies Ltd
Publisher’s own product — never ranked
Design & simulation · Web
A browser-based solar design, shading, yield, electrical and proposal platform sold per seat on an annual subscription, aimed at installers and EPCs who want one tool instead of a CAD package plus a simulation engine plus a spreadsheet.
2 products make no statement either way
We searched these vendors’ own pages and found neither a claim nor a denial. That is recorded as “not found”, which is different from “not offered” — the capability may well exist and simply not be documented. We never convert silence into a no.
Categories these products sit in
Capabilities bought alongside it
12 of the 100 products we researched carry 3d roof and obstruction modelling, 11 of them at the depth we code as advanced. Verified against vendor pages on 28 September 2026.
Building a three-dimensional model of the roof and everything on it — planes, pitches, azimuths, vents, chimneys, skylights — from imagery, LIDAR, drone capture or a manual trace.
Vendors name it 3 different ways on their own sites, including “3D roof + obstruction modelling”, “3D roof model”, “Remote site model from imagery”. We normalise all of them onto one canonical capability so they can be compared.
