Although fabrics are widely used as shading devices, reliable simulation models are rather rare and therefore the choice of a fabric with appropriate material characteristics is difficult. This paper presents a simulation model, which can be applied to most of the common available fabric shading materials. Furthermore a comprehensive simulation study has been conducted in order to derive simple to use tables for the selection of appropriate shading properties for a designer. These tables enable the user to select the "right" fabric according to a combination of multiple boundary conditions (location, orientation, window sizes, user positions).