North Orientation

SketchUp Pro
1

How do you determine North Orientation for shadows to be accurate?

3

North is only one of four parameters you must set to display shadows that accurately portray the real world.
• Geographic Orientation — Relationship of True North to the model.
• Geographic Location — Latitude and Longitude
• Time — Year, Month, Day, Hour and Minute
• UTC Offset — The difference between local time and the Coordinated Universal Time standard.

By default, the +Y solid green Axis is true north to the shadow engine.
However, the +Y Axis is no longer true north if you geo-locate the model via SketchUp’s Add Location.

I find the simplest, most direct approach to shadow analysis is to manually geo-locate the model.
Window > Model Info > Geo-location > Set Manual Location
Then…
• Build the model along the Default Axes.
• Install the Solar North plugin (SketchUp Pro only) if you haven’t already done so.
• Use the Solar North tools to set true north in relation to the model.

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4

Thanks - great explanation.

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5

I also use manual location the most. Often I have no interest of the imagery, and I don’t want to have to manually restore true north to the Y axis as a separate step. It’s a pity that the Add location feature is designed in such a way that we both prefer to entering the coordinates ourselves :confused: .

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6

This well could be implemented in an extension😃?

7

Nah, extensions are great for adding new functionality, especially if oustide or at the edge of the scope of the main program. When a native feature however isn’t ideal I think it’s better to polish it a bit than stacking it with a similar feature that has to be rewritten from scratch.

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8

Thank you for sharing the knowledge. My model was built on default axes instead of georefereced at the beginning. The solar north was installed to show the true north. Just wondering if there is a way to get coordinate from the true north while maintaining model in default axes.

9

You may consider moving / rotating your axis so that they are at 0,0,0, if for instance, you need to measure stuff from origin. I would then save these modified axis to a scene, and use them only when referring to absolute 0,0,0, and switch to my world axis when modelling.
SketchUp does not like working with geometry far away from absolute 0,0,0.

Also, be careful with geo locating. The built in function will rotate your model inadvertently if you change your North offset. You won’t notice at first, because your axes will rotate as well. But, if you have pre set views, they will get messed up.