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Using ArborShadow
Pre-Assessment
ArborShadow is intended to be used for assessing a single or just a small number of trees at any one time. This is due to the memory requirement and processing time required for shadow calculation and its display. The maximum number of trees permitted for display at any one time is 10 but you may find (depending upon your hardware specification) that 4 trees causes a slow redraw.
One method of working is to divide a site for assessment into smaller project areas. To do this, first carry out a general visual assessment of a proposed site layout against the existing trees.
A number of potential conflicts can be ignored. For example, trees located on the northern boundary of a site will only produce shadows south of their position during the summer months and then only at the very beginning of the day (approximately 5-7am) and towards the end of the day (6pm +). So a short note in a report can discount all trees on a northern boundary. Of course this only works for northern latitudes (UK, USA, etc.); if you live in Australia then you would discount all trees located on a southern site boundary.
This can also be applied within a site itself, if an area north of a tree is open space or perhaps a road junction then a conflict is unlikely. The highest potential for conflicts is where trees are located south of gardens. A typical green field development will be enclosed with hedgerow and trees. Back gardens are then typically arranged so they back onto the hedgerows causing no end of potential conflicts.
Another general point is when trees are located on a western site boundary they will generally only cause shading to the site in the afternoon, once the sun has moved past solar noon the tree shadows move eastwards. Likewise trees on an eastern site boundary will only cause shadowing into a site during the morning. Its up to you to decide the relevance of this.
As an example, if an assessment shows that a particular tree will shade an adjacent garden for most of a morning at all times of a year but it can be demonstrated that for every afternoon of a year the garden will be completely shade free and enjoy uninterrupted potential sunlight, then that may be considered to be an acceptable level of sunlight. And may be defensible if an owner decided to appeal against refusal for pruning or removal to abate the morning nuisance.