Shadow Studies

Hi,

I’m a bit confused in terms of the method to accurately perform a shadow analysis in SketchUp. I understand that there are two ways to geolocate a model (Set Manual Location & Add Location via Google Imagery).

The shadows between the two geolocation methods seem to differ. When using the Add Location method the north angle changes to 358.90 degrees. However, using the Set Manual Location method, the north angle remains at 0 degrees.

Which method is the preferred way? Does the north angle change depending on your latitude and longitude?

‘Add Location’ is the better method for it takes everything into account. The slight change in north angle is indeed the result of lat/long data, rather complex and IMO not worth to try to figure out.
I’ve tried to see how that data influences the angle to be plus or minus and how big it is but gave up.

Does that mean that the Manual Location method only accounts for Latitude and Longitude and does not take into consideration of altitude and calibration of the solar north angle?

That’s correct. There’s no place to enter an elevation for your geo-location. You can use the Solar North plugin from the Extension Warehouse to modify solar north away from the green axis if you need to.

See this thread for some more details: Solar North & Geolocation

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