newbie here in desperate need of help/suggestion. here's the story...
i need to do shadow casting of a part of a city to see the differences thru out a year (and also at different time in a day as well). originally i did a sketchup model but then my tutor said he want to see the shadow casting in lines on the plan drawing instead of what sketchup normally give. so i thought ok ill just draw the lines from the pic i save from sketchup. that didnt work at all coz some parts are small or overlapping it gets too confusing and also look incredibly awful. so im trying to use sun chart and draw the shadow lines from autocad. i thought i could do it coz i already did the section drawing in autocad using angle from sunchart but.. as i mentioned its partial of a city...its friggin confusing and giving me headache and nightmares and it doesnt look like im going to finish all of them in this lifetime. i really need some help please. anyone know the program that show the casting shadows in lines? you'd just be saving my life. really. thank you.
seriously tho why dont you trace them in autocad? it'S pretty good if you underlay the file with the sketchup pic and i.e. trim xlines so that you gave an even shadow horizon.,,
other than that perhaps you could get a vector render plugin for your modelling programm, render with shadow turned on and then remove the fill in a vect. edit program.
yeh. fucking people trying to use new tools when the old ones worked perfectly fine!
not to be anti-anti-luddite or anything, but a very small break is perhaps in order?
in japan we are legally required to provide shadow dwgs for our buildings to prove that neighbours peroperties will not be in shade for more than 2 (or 3 or 4 depending on the zoning) hours each day. is part of the planning submittal process, so not something we can avoid.
when i started in the office we did it by hand. which meant getting the position of the sun on the longest day of the year and then mapping the shadows that would be cast from 8am to 5pm (at 1 hr or 30 min. intervals). this was a very very very tedious process, but did not take more than a day usually. and didn't involve much more than basic trig. if you do it by hand i can only say have fun. it isn't difficult, just a bit tedious. especially when you have to do it 20 times or more cuz of design investigations and changes...
however, we now have a bit of freeware software that does it for us (called JW - cad), so that a day-long job turns into the work of a half hour. it is unfortunately only in japanese and not likely to come out in english. sorry. if you know someone who can read japanese i would def recommend...
i suggest tracing a sketchup generated jpg in Autocad, as above. seems by far the easiest way. unless you REALLY want to go through the tedium of doing it by hand?
i think the ching book goes over shadows....... ....or..... make a physical massive mock up.... lay it on graph paper...... hold up a sun per angle....then mark points/etc.........
or just make it up and see if the tutor is really pulling your leg
thanks so much for all replies. didnt expect to get so many!
i do know how to do it by hand but in a dark hour, i just thought if there's something out there that can do this then it would be great. the thing about tracing jpeg in autocad is when shadows overlapping its hard to tell which is which. so i feel like im slightly faking it. but im tracing from jpeg now anyway. half way now after drafting like crazy for 2 days.
so i guess it can be finished in this lifetiem after all...
help! casting shadows in lines?
hi guys
newbie here in desperate need of help/suggestion. here's the story...
i need to do shadow casting of a part of a city to see the differences thru out a year (and also at different time in a day as well). originally i did a sketchup model but then my tutor said he want to see the shadow casting in lines on the plan drawing instead of what sketchup normally give. so i thought ok ill just draw the lines from the pic i save from sketchup. that didnt work at all coz some parts are small or overlapping it gets too confusing and also look incredibly awful. so im trying to use sun chart and draw the shadow lines from autocad. i thought i could do it coz i already did the section drawing in autocad using angle from sunchart but.. as i mentioned its partial of a city...its friggin confusing and giving me headache and nightmares and it doesnt look like im going to finish all of them in this lifetime. i really need some help please. anyone know the program that show the casting shadows in lines? you'd just be saving my life. really. thank you.
your tutor sounds like a prick
seriously tho why dont you trace them in autocad? it'S pretty good if you underlay the file with the sketchup pic and i.e. trim xlines so that you gave an even shadow horizon.,,
other than that perhaps you could get a vector render plugin for your modelling programm, render with shadow turned on and then remove the fill in a vect. edit program.
i think you can do a section cut in plan view, hide the section plane and then turn the shadows on.
sorry, that is assuming he is willing to accept a perspective plan. our prof will take either cad drawings or sketchup section cuts for plans.
i hope your tutor gives the program a good grade for the class...
drop the class...
"i hope your tutor gives the program a good grade for the class..."
that's the funniest thing i've ever read on archinect.
yeh. fucking people trying to use new tools when the old ones worked perfectly fine!
not to be anti-anti-luddite or anything, but a very small break is perhaps in order?
in japan we are legally required to provide shadow dwgs for our buildings to prove that neighbours peroperties will not be in shade for more than 2 (or 3 or 4 depending on the zoning) hours each day. is part of the planning submittal process, so not something we can avoid.
when i started in the office we did it by hand. which meant getting the position of the sun on the longest day of the year and then mapping the shadows that would be cast from 8am to 5pm (at 1 hr or 30 min. intervals). this was a very very very tedious process, but did not take more than a day usually. and didn't involve much more than basic trig. if you do it by hand i can only say have fun. it isn't difficult, just a bit tedious. especially when you have to do it 20 times or more cuz of design investigations and changes...
however, we now have a bit of freeware software that does it for us (called JW - cad), so that a day-long job turns into the work of a half hour. it is unfortunately only in japanese and not likely to come out in english. sorry. if you know someone who can read japanese i would def recommend...
i suggest tracing a sketchup generated jpg in Autocad, as above. seems by far the easiest way. unless you REALLY want to go through the tedium of doing it by hand?
i think the ching book goes over shadows....... ....or..... make a physical massive mock up.... lay it on graph paper...... hold up a sun per angle....then mark points/etc.........
or just make it up and see if the tutor is really pulling your leg
thanks so much for all replies. didnt expect to get so many!
i do know how to do it by hand but in a dark hour, i just thought if there's something out there that can do this then it would be great. the thing about tracing jpeg in autocad is when shadows overlapping its hard to tell which is which. so i feel like im slightly faking it. but im tracing from jpeg now anyway. half way now after drafting like crazy for 2 days.
so i guess it can be finished in this lifetiem after all...
yeah man!...then you can tell your friends at a bar that you learned sciagraphy in school...i think that's cool!!!
Render the shadows in plan then use Illustrator's "live paint" tool to trace.
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