I’m doing RCPs with a lot of lights and was wondering if there is a quick win to move everything to the same Z (Blue?)
At the moment I am placing light symbols on furniture then manually moving them to a specific Z
I’m doing RCPs with a lot of lights and was wondering if there is a quick win to move everything to the same Z (Blue?)
At the moment I am placing light symbols on furniture then manually moving them to a specific Z
Are you putting in 2D symbols into SketchUp? If I were doing that I would draw a large rectangle at the desired Z and place the symbols on that rectangle. That would save having to move them after the fact.
I am referencing a large plan with loads of different furniture…
I did find this, which kinda helps I think; experimenting!
@DanRathbun came to the rescue with this great script!
Well, if you want to do one that way (section cut looking down in plan with the ceiling info dotted or whatever as just 2D symbols), I would just make a great big rectangle plane with a clear texture (like glass) and position it just below the section cut. Then everything you place or draw will be right on that plane, but visually you can see through it to everything below. Just layer/tag is so you can turn it off for all other views and general modeling.
A full blown ceiling plan would be a section cut looking up at the ceiling. That would show lights where you actually place them which works for the case where you’re also placing them for rendering software. For it to be a reflected ceiling plan, you’d have to mirror the viewport in Layout. You could even overlay that viewport on top of a plan viewport.
Yup - I have all that sorted… I am actually using a component for each fixture that has two symbol components nested in it - one for the set-out process and one to actually show up on the RCP
You know what would be really cool… invoke the script… and it asks you what height above 000 you want the components… eh @DanRathbun ??
Get out your wallet… It’s my understanding that even though DanRathbun won’t bother to publish a proper plug-in because the script is too short. Special Request of existing IP creations are another matter… and they usually come at a heafty price tag—adjusted for inflation, of course.
There’s always Throw To.
Oh, dear! What happens when you Throw to Infinity?
You end up with tennis elbow.
ooooo that looks the daddy!
But, I’m guessing, if you’re trying to align a bunch of 2D things to a plane while being nested with a 3D fixture in the ceiling that you want to stay where it is, I imagine that’s a challenge (unless I’ve misunderstood you working method).
You know what else you could try? Instead of making the 2D symbol be just 2D, you could extrude it and delete the end faces so it just has vertical faces. As long as the section plane intersects it somewhere, it will show up in orthographic projection as that symbol shape in the section cut itself.
Like a stick of Rock!
I like the thinking; I have the two components on different layers so I can control them
I guess the idea of cutting and extrusion was probably on my mind after my daughter showed me this video on making candy with a Shiba Inu’s face running through the whole thing; a perfect little picture in every slice.
The extension DropGC will drop Groups and Components vertically down onto a surface - theyll hit and sit upon whatever is below them (so if that surface happens to be a floor then it will put the components down onto the floor)
I use it all the time, It’s great.
If your floor has objects and stairs and things , then you may want to create a temporary flat surface to drop them on to.