Sun angle question with Accurender nXt on Revit 2012

So far, so good, for the most part.

The one major question I have with build ArRevit_KC28rv on a Windows 7, 64-bit system, is that the sun position used by AR is about 90 degrees clockwise from the position specified in Revit. For instance, when a Revit shaded views shows the sunlight coming (correctly) from due west, the nXt sunlight comes from due north.

Might be an interface issue -- I copied the ArRevit_2011.addin and the ArRevit_2011Ribbon.addin to the Revit 2012 Addins folder and edited them to point at the right DLL's (as outlined in this forum -- thanks!).

Suggestions?

-Bill

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on April 21, 2011 at 10:48pm

Can you make a small sample revit model where this is occurring, and send it to me, so that I can duplicate this?

There is a setting in Revit where you can set the Sun position relative to the current view. This may be what is occurring here, but it would help if I had a model to look at, to figure it out.

I've meant to add our own Sun Position dialog to the Revit 2011 and 2012 interface, like we had for Revit 2009 an 2010, but obviously haven't done it yet. This would let override any problems like this that come up, so you could count on getting the correct Sun position.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Gilliss on April 22, 2011 at 10:35am

I think I've tracked it down: when Project North and True North are the same, all is well. When they are not the same, Revit uses True North as the reference for the sun angle, while nXt uses Project North. In my original model, True and Project north were 122 degrees from each other, so nothing seemed to make sense.

In the small model attached, True North is rotated 32 degrees CCW from Project North. The 3D view named "facing south" shows how each of the programs rendered June 1 at 10 am. You can see how the light from the window on the right is flat on the floor in the Revit image, and begins to climb the wall in the nXt image. Model and JPG's attached.

Frankly, the Revit sun positioning works great, and you can preview cast shadows perfectly in any shaded visual style, so I'd vote for NOT including an independent nXt Sun Position dialog -- too confusing to keep track of.

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