My shadows are almost exactly backwards. I am in the northern hemisphere, but the cast shadows are in the south.
I think I have set it up properly. I entered the latitude and longitude, and carefully located the axes.
The screenshot below should say everything. It shows the proper north latitude, the UTC offset (-8), and the green and red axes are clearly visible… as is the shadow to the south!
I tried changing the latitude to “S” and then the shadows were to the north, but the sun was still coming from the east, which would be expected if things were still “wrong” even if in the southern hemisphere.
One possibility: I have placed numerous models (furniture, etc.) from the SketchUp Warehouse, and I think one or more of them may have had the “Geolocated” badge on in the Warehouse. Could one such model mess up my whole model’s geolocation? If so, how do I find the problem component?
Another possibility: I originally created this model in the wrong orientation, with the south side of the structure in the green (as opposed to dashed-green) axis. But then, I carefully followed the instructions for geo-orienting it, moving the axes cluster and precision-adjusting it for the site magnetic declination. Could any of my model components somehow “remember” their orientation prior to re-orienting the model? If so, how can I fix that without re-creating the entire model?
Yet another: I had just surveyed the site with a compass, corrected for the site’s magnetic declination. I had built the model “square” to the green axis heading south, but I ended up applying a correction of 189° when I rotated the blue axis. Could being so close to 180° be confusing SketchUp somehow?
There’s a plugin called solar north, it’s a plugin created by Trimble, it used to be part of the native tools but for whatever reason they decided to leave it as a plugin.
Sharing the model will help us help you better, the image you shared actually doesn’t tell much.
This will not change the direction of north regarding shadows. Reset the axes.and then rotate the entire model so that the north side of it is in the solid green direction.
The Solar North plugin will change the direction from which shadows are cast but it won’t affect the orientation of plan view scenes.
Here’s very close to the same location you are using at the same date and time as you show in Shadows.This is with the axes in their default orientation. The orange line represents the line to True North as determined by the current Add Location feature.
they left it as a plugin because it’s also now part of the native tool. but only for recent versions.
@JanSteinman it looks like your north isn’t up but on the side indeed.
in the VIEW menu, look at the bottom, and turn on the north (it’ll look like an orange axis.)
then, yeah, like Dave said, you could rotate everything so it matches the orage north.
well, the blue axis is always vertical
you could also clear location, and then reset it. your building is very symmetrical, try adding something, even a simple cube, outside where you want the north side to be : when adding a location, you can turn on a ghost of the model to help you rotate it.
Not sure whether it could mess up your models geo location, but you should always download assets/ entourage in a separate instance of SketchUp so you can inspect and clean them up before you use it in your model.
Things like geolocation is quite useless for a table or chairs..
Also check for unnecessary detail. This will bloat your file.
Also tags that come with it but you won’t use should be deleted.
Yes, I typically do open downloaded models and look them over before using them. If for no other reason, to change the units to inches. (I love the metric system, and would choose to use it if it weren’t for all the other people involved in the project!)
I recently downloaded a desk with an office chair. A quick look didn’t show problems. But when I placed it in my model, strange things began to happen. I turned the model over, and the wheels of the chair were all sticking out the bottom!
Thanks. It really did not occur to me that I’d have to do this!
It appears as though the cardinal direction capability was a glue-on afterthought. It never occurred to me that individual components would argue with the green axis!
This fixed the problem, and now I know better. So much in SketchUp seems to demand thinking and planning ahead — including a memory of “north” that continues after you change the definition of “north”!
Thanks for that suggestion. It turns out that rotating the entire model was not as much trouble as I thought it would be.
The thing to keep in mind is that the axis orientation does not define where north is in the model space and thus doesn’t change the direction from which the shadows appear to emanate. With the default orientation of the axes the solid green points north. If you geo-locate the model with the Add Location feature True North might vary a little off of the green axis like it does in my screenshot. Rotating the axes will not change the direction to north in any case.
Also related, the model origin (0,0,0) is a fixed point in the model space, by default the axis lines intersect at the origin but if you move the axes so their intersection is somewhere else in the model space, (0,0,0) won’t move with them.
This is most definitely true. Pretty much like anything else. Probably isn’t a good idea to go out to buy a ladder and paint rollers after you’ve poured the paint into the tray. As you get more familiar with working in SketchUp you’ll be able to anticipate what you’ll need to do now to make it easier to do things later.
Back to the axes. The Standard Views are connected to the axis orientation. If the front of your house is on the north side and you want to use the standard Front view for the front elevation, you would change the axes so the solid green points south. Similarly, if the front of the house is on the east side you would set up the axes so solid green points west.
Be very careful changing the axes, though. It’s easy to get them placed just a degree or two off and that can really ball up your model.
Oh, I’ve been doing SketchUp sporadically for nearly 20 years, and I’ve taken classes in it.
I still find it pretty counter-intuitive, and it often frustrates me when what seems to me (a retired professional software engineer) to be simple problems wind up needing complex solutions — like why is there more than one notion of “north”? I’m not making this up! The Trimble page on casting shadows definitively says “green is north”!
Anyway, enough complaining. It seems to be working now, thanks to you!
It is correct for the axes in their default orientation but if the user moves them, then it may not be correct. The SketchUp Help files could use some clarification in regards to the model axes, shadows, and north. It would actually create problems if north and shadows were controlled by the axis orientation.
Changing the axes affects snaps etc, but the underlying model axes remain unchanged, and only these are used to determine shadows. The model’s axes are North green-solid, East red-solid and Up blue-solid. You can reset the axes back to the model’s axes by hovering over an existing axis line and using the right-click context-menu where Reset will let you do this. Geo-locating your model will set up shadows relative to the model’s axes [N&E] and even lets you determine the solar-north offset of the green-axis to suit the location [because north and solar-north are not exactly the same thing] - is older versions there’s su_’s own Solar-North extension from the EWH which does this for you.
Modeling ‘on-axis’ when in reality the red-axis is nothing like North is common and easily sidestepped by setting solar-north in one of these ways and does not change the model-axes. Alternatively you can select everything in your model and make a group which you rotate to suit the model’s ‘real’ north. Inside an edit of that group every thing will be set up axial as before but in the parent model its axes will be different. Another alternative is to select everything in the model and physically rotate it to the correct alignment to North. This makes working axially awkward until you temporarily set the displayed/used axes to be alignment with again, thereafter everything should be oriented correctly as far as shadows are concerned because the solar North won’t then be your green-axis as you’ve temporarily set up…
And yet, magnetic north, rotational north, and solar north all have physical reasons, unlike “I screwed up when I started the project.”
(Come to think of it, perhaps those different physical norths have a Creator despairing somewhere, saying, “I screwed up when I started the project… especially with those naked fire-apes…”
As you get more familiar with working in SketchUp you’ll be able to anticipate what you’ll need to do now to make it easier to do things later.
