New Feature

Hi everybody : One feature I would like to see, using iRender nXt, is to enhance to position of the sun. Even though Sketchup has basic settings for sunshine, it IS limited. If iRender nXt included an enhancement to that, it could lead to a wider range of sunshine angles. Gary Stanullwich

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on December 13, 2016 at 5:49pm

What is missing?

I see that you can set latitude and longitude for the model, and time zone, data, time of day for the sun.

What could we add to make it better?

We could let you set the sun position manually (where we let you simply set the azimuth and altitude, and also add a north offset, so you don't have to rotate the model or the axes), and use those manual settings instead of the ones in SketchUp. That would perhaps make it a bit easier to change and see the results more quickly...Or is there something else that I'm missing?

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on December 13, 2016 at 8:54pm

What if you were able to rotate the model around and pick a spot for the sun in the sky?

Does that work at all?

We would then have to rotate the model and choose a time of day for this to work. If you pick June 21, and rotate the model, you can probably force the sun to match a point in the sky.

I see that there is an extension for SketchUp that lets you set the direction of Solar North:

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/solar-north

It sounds like no one knows what it does or if you can install it for recent versions of SketchUp.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Stanullwich on December 14, 2016 at 9:13am

Rich Hart said:

What is missing?

I see that you can set latitude and longitude for the model, and time zone, data, time of day for the sun.

What could we add to make it better?

We could let you set the sun position manually (where we let you simply set the azimuth and altitude, and also add a north offset, so you don't have to rotate the model or the axes), and use those manual settings instead of the ones in SketchUp. That would perhaps make it a bit easier to change and see the results more quickly...Or is there something else that I'm missing?

REPLY : I can set the longitude / latitude using the Sketchup Geo settings. As for the sun, it still is set by Sketchup's SHADOW function. Yes.....I COULD rotate the entire model. But, for better accuracy, I wish iRender nXt would have the option of setting the sun in degrees.....minus or plus. Gary Stanullwich

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Permalink Reply by Gary Stanullwich on December 14, 2016 at 9:17am

Al Hart said:

What if you were able to rotate the model around and pick a spot for the sun in the sky?

Does that work at all?

REPLY : But......the sun and shadows would STILL be controlled by Sketchup's SHADOW function. Whereas, if iRender nXt had a function where I could rotate the light / sun in degrees....plus or minus....for better accuracy. It would be less clumsy that trying to find the exact position by rotating the model. Gary Stanullwich

We would then have to rotate the model and choose a time of day for this to work. If you pick June 21, and rotate the model, you can probably force the sun to match a point in the sky.

I see that there is an extension for SketchUp that lets you set the direction of Solar North:

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/solar-north

It sounds like no one knows what it does or if you can install it for recent versions of SketchUp.

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on December 14, 2016 at 10:05am

"But......the sun and shadows would STILL be controlled by Sketchup's SHADOW function. Whereas, if iRender nXt had a function where I could rotate the light / sun in degrees....plus or minus....for better accuracy. It would be less clumsy that trying to find the exact position by rotating the model. Gary Stanullwich "

Would you like to rotate the sun while in SketchUp or in the Batch Renderer?

The function I am would let you say "Rotate sun by x degrees" while still in SketchUp, and you would see the SketchUp shadows move by that number of degrees.

We would do this, (presumably), by rotating the whole model, or something else, (e.g. azimuth and altitude), to rotate the sun.

Tell us again what you would like to be able to do?