I started making my house model, then decided to Geolocate it. Obviously the real site wasn’t exactly north south, so I had to select all my house parts and rotate them so that they matched the site orientation. so now my shadows are in the right direction!
But now, if i select Camera > Standard Views > Front, so that I can export the front elevation to Layout, its not the Front elevation any more, its twisted.
Have I done things in the wrong order?
Nope. The standard view directions are fixed. The standard Front view will always be such that the default red axis runs right to left and the default solid green runs into the distance. You can set appropriate views by right clicking on a face and selecting Align view. Then create or update the scene.
In LayOut, make sure you are selecting the scene from the drop down list. Do not select the view from the Standard Views menu. Actually, if you use scenes correctly in SU and use them for your viewports in LO, there’s no need to ever touch the Standard Views menu in LO.
Brilliant. Thankyou!
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No you didn’t and shouldn’t have. You should rotate all the “parts” back to align with the global axis.
THEN, set the solar north angle properly to align the model with the GeoLocation. It is easiest is to use Trimble’s little plugin (that used to come with SketchUp, … but now you need to install it yourself.)
To set it manually, via the Ruby console …
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["DisplayNorth"]= true
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["NorthAngle"]= 5.0
The angle will be positive clockwise from SketchUp’s Y_AXIS (0.0).
Ie, 90.0 degrees would rotate your model 1/4 turn to the left (counterclockwise) in Google Earth, as it would set the North Angle to be along SketchUp’s X_AXIS.
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This is an okay solution, but doesn’t solve the problem of all of the scenes now needing updating to have the correct solar north settings for the rest of the scenes… How do you get around this issue where all other scenes need to also have the same correct solar north orientation?
Of course the obvious “solution” is to have first read the user manual on how geolocation works within SketchUp and model accordingly from the start.
Most likely an iterative loop that resets the axes display and shadow info for each scene page.
This is an untested example. (click to expand) ...
(The module names should be personalized.)
This example also assumes that all scene pages will use the model level shadow info (which will globally control the north angle setting and when the orange indicator is shown.)
module AuthorNamspace
module SomeExtension
extend self
# Reset ALL Scenes to use World Axes.
def reset_all_scenes_to_world_axes
model = Sketchup.active_model
model.start_operation("Reset All Scenes Axes",true)
scenes = model.pages
flags = PAGE_USE_SKETCHCS
scenes.each do |scene|
scene.use_axes= false
scene.update(flags)
end
model.active_view.invalidate
UI.refresh_inspectors
model.commit_operation
end
# Reset ALL Scenes to use World NorthAngle. This sets
# each scene page to just use the world model shadow info.
def reset_all_scenes_to_world_northangle
model = Sketchup.active_model
model.start_operation("Reset All Scenes North Angle",true)
scenes = model.pages
flags = PAGE_USE_SHADOWINFO
scenes.each do |scene|
scene.use_shadow_info= false
scene.update(flags)
end
model.active_view.invalidate
UI.refresh_inspectors
model.commit_operation
end
end
end
Of course the obvious “solution” is to have first read the user manual on how geolocation works within SketchUp and model accordingly from the start.
You sound like a Sketchup Sage with that kind of a reply. Sarcastic and full of assumption. Perhaps a better approach would be asking me questions rather than making assumptions on what I know or don’t know… Anyways, you might be right about that and if so, than I probably should go back and learn the basics again about geo locating. Maybe in the mean time, perhaps you could give some examples on what I might be missing?
I’ve read that if I turn off the scene animations in my scenes, that the solar north will be the same for all scenes, or something like that… I want my scene animations on in all scenes so that doesn’t work for me. I have all of my scenes setup as a template, so I’m not going to make my solar north in one scene and than make all the scenes off of that scene because mine are already setup and ready to go in the model. This then leaves me to manually updating all scenes to have the correct solar north. Part of my problem is I have different shadow light and darkness settings for different types of presentations.
My solution for this for now is pretty simple. I just rotate my geo imagery to be in line with the building I’m designing, set my solar north using some reference lines to achieve this and shadows at solar noon on jun 21st and once this scene has the correct solar north, I only update my working scenes with the same shadow settings and my sun study scenes and that’s it. Pretty simple and not too long to setup for each project. Wondering if there is a better way though?
I do appreciate your comment and time in sharing this script. I am not looking for a script though. Maybe you could explain a bit more about that because I don’t understand quite yet exactly what it would solve. It looks like the script would not mess with shadow settings and only update the solar north axis. If that’s the case, it could be quite useful and maybe I would use a script like that. For now I’m not sure.
since reading Dave R’s helpful comment at the top of this thread, I’ve expanded this into a relatively simple set of procedures that I now use for all new projects. I’m sure this can be improved on, but it works for me;
I start my model - often by importing a pdf or dwg file, based on the SU standard template’s axis.
Once the model is underway, I GeoLocate the file. Then Clear the Geolocation as I don’t need the aerial view and terrain etc. Next I set the UTC clock for my location. Finally I use the Trimble Solar North plugin that Dan recommended above.
My model is now in the right location, in the right time zone and facing the right way. The standard views in SketchUp and Layout all still work, and shadows are correct.
Seems to do it for me.
Paul
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I have not heard this, but have not tested for it either. (I also would not think that animations settings would affect solar north or other shadow settings, but there are some bugs logged for weird things that happen during animations.)
Well then you can do what it does manually.
You would need to activate each scene in turn and then in the Scene Manager inspector, uncheck the appropriate box for either (or both of) Shadow Settings and Axes Location. Then click the update button. (Repeat for each scene.)
Since you are working with a template, you would also need to manually update the template file so that new models will not need to be fixed manually.
The methods (I pasted above) do not really update either. Instead, they switch off individual shadow and axes saving for each scene, so that they will thereafter default to using the model’s global shadow info and axes.
(The solar north angle and it’s orange indicator toggle are part of the shadow info properties. So will also follow the global setting and be used by each scene if they are set to not save their own.)
So in summary, your scenes can each either have their own separate axes and shadow settings, or just use the global model’s axes and shadow settings. (Again the solar north angle and indicator toggle are one of the shadow info properties.)
Thanks for taking the time to respond to all of this!
So one big thing I think I’m taking away from this is the shadow settings and axis settings. Funny how although I do know how scenes and scene properties work, I think I might have been missing something usfeul. I’ll do some testing on my end with you last comments there and see if I can make my workflow that much better.
Thanks again.
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