Archaeoastronomy and Sketchup
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Hi.
I'm looking for advice on how to make a plug-in or script to help on an ongoing architectural research project. If it can be done, it will prove once more the usefulness of SU for a variety of disciplines. Before I go any further and probably not making me clear with what can be a complex explanation, I just want to say that what I want to achieve with the plug in is to simply make and object point to a particular spot in space, rotating it given two specific rotating angles. That's it. I just want to use it in an automatic fashion because I will have to use many, many angles according to a specific database. Hope someone finds this interesting and help, so here it goes:Trough what science circles call Archaeoastronomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoastronomy), my research involves studying the relation of astronomy and architecture, both on how ancient buildings where oriented towards celestial bodies and how this can be applied today in contemporary architecture design. I'm responsible for the design and building of a "human solar clock" in the "Sol del Niño" Museum in Mexicali, Mexico, and design initiative for a Public Astronomy Park, a design contest for an astronomically oriented building in Nazca, Peru. My theses was also about how architectural form can be partially due to astronomical alignments, about how the orientation of a building envelope components, like walls, are determined by the position o certain stars or points where the sun rises over the horizon. This is my interest to reproduce and "play" within SU. For this, what I need is to have the coordinates of a celestial body so a certain object of a SU model can align to it (point to it, directed toward it). I know that this can be done by hand, but the whole process can be done much faster with a script. So, the question is: can a script be made in which:
a) according to a specific date and geographic place of a model, a dialog window can pop up in SU like a spreadsheet that can show the coordinates of the stars according to that place and time (There is a lot of free apps that can show this coordinates according to a specific time and place, but I don’t know how to integrate it to the Location info in SU) and then
b) Assign the coordinates (they are always two) of a certain star to a certain plane(s) or object(s) of the model so it automatically aligns or points to that star?
As a reminder, the coordinates of a star in the celestial sphere are two: Declination and Right Ascension (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/celsphere.gif).
Thanks in advance for any advice on how I can make this possible. Regards.
Javier S.
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Hello Javier,
I would start tackling this initiative with the following steps:
1) Model a very rough 3D sample archeological site using standard Sketchup tools
2) Place few Sketchup cameras inside this 3D model, pointing to assumed prpoer orientations towards the sky
Many Sketchup plugins can assist in this step, you may also take a look at my "Museum/Gallery Plugin" for Sketchup
3) Place a Dome above this model to represent the sky
4) Place on the Dome a JPEG picture texture (Sketchup "material") of the Sky of one specific point in time
5) Adjust Cameras properties looking towards the dome
6) If satisfied get additional "Sky Pictures" of more points in time to be placed on the dome
You can have many "Domes" all hidden, except one - or you can go with switching single domes texture, standard Sketchup features
7) The last step is to work out best method of generating and switching the domes texture.
There are many "visualization" tools (also available from google) to generate "pictures" out of "mathematics", i guess one that represents the sky might already be available.
8) Only if the "Dome" solution proves to be lacking must features, you may need to represent the "stars" of the sky as real 3D Sketchup objects. On this task 90% + of a programmers time
will be probably spent on understanding the mathematics and experimenting with very high precission mathematics in Sketchups scripting language "Ruby".
I believe this is the only real challenge, but first you shoud get to this step.Cheers, Moris P.
( post links of your sites )
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Hi Morisdov and thank you for jumping in to this thread. There is an updated thread here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=27480
with included images hoping to make clearer explanations. I will take a closer read to your post, but let me start by saying that it is of no interest to represent the stars inside Sketchup, not in 3D or in any visual way, but to make a plane point towards specific stars at specific dates. There is a very similar plug-in that was created yersteday and updated today called "Face Sun":
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=27499
What is needed is a plug-in that makes faces point to stars, something that can be called "Face Star". There are several ways to locate a star on the sky, one of which are Azimuth and Altitude coordinates that take North and a horizontal plane as a needed reference, both of which are already included in Sketchup. The coordinates can be obtained trough astronomy software, so the next step is to have a way that Sketchup understands where this coordinates converge according to it's North and horizontal plane, and make a selected face point towards that point. That's it.
@morisdov said:
Hello Javier,
I would start tackling this initiative with the following steps:
1) Model a very rough 3D sample archeological site using standard Sketchup tools
2) Place few Sketchup cameras inside this 3D model, pointing to assumed prpoer orientations towards the sky
Many Sketchup plugins can assist in this step, you may also take a look at my "Museum/Gallery Plugin" for Sketchup
3) Place a Dome above this model to represent the sky
4) Place on the Dome a JPEG picture texture (Sketchup "material") of the Sky of one specific point in time
5) Adjust Cameras properties looking towards the dome
6) If satisfied get additional "Sky Pictures" of more points in time to be placed on the dome
You can have many "Domes" all hidden, except one - or you can go with switching single domes texture, standard Sketchup features
7) The last step is to work out best method of generating and switching the domes texture.
There are many "visualization" tools (also available from google) to generate "pictures" out of "mathematics", i guess one that represents the sky might already be available.
8) Only if the "Dome" solution proves to be lacking must features, you may need to represent the "stars" of the sky as real 3D Sketchup objects. On this task 90% + of a programmers time
will be probably spent on understanding the mathematics and experimenting with very high precission mathematics in Sketchups scripting language "Ruby".
I believe this is the only real challenge, but first you shoud get to this step.Cheers, Moris P.
( post links of your sites )
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Hi Javier, I cant guess which faces in your 3D model should have the ability to reorient themselves towards anything.
The "archeological site construction" which is the only 3D model is frozen by history and must be locked for any changes whatsoever.
you should place in that 3D model many Skethcup "cameras" and orient only them to face certain directions towards the sky at a certain date and time point. (like the sky of the longest day of year 500 BC or 1492).
You can ANIMATEvia sketchups standard view animation features to "look" form the cameras - this will be your demonstration of this whole idea.You may add lines from the cameras to the cameras target point(star in the sky) to emphesize and "prove" and "explore" that the archeological site was indeed constructed in ancient times in accordance and perspective related to stars positions of specific dates and times.
As an unrelated side note - i recommend exploring when "perspective" was first "invented" in each cultures paintings
Cheers, Moris -
Hi Morisdov:
As I wrote on the first post, one of the uses of the plugin is helping in the research of how the bodies in the night sky can be used to contemporary design (please do not mistake this for astrology). So a lot of rotating goes along, orienting a single face to various points in the sky until finding the right one. Since this thread, I have simplified my request of the plugin here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=27876
Regards.
@morisdov said:
Hi Javier, I cant guess which faces in your 3D model should have the ability to reorient themselves towards anything.
The "archeological site construction" which is the only 3D model is frozen by history and must be locked for any changes whatsoever.
you should place in that 3D model many Skethcup "cameras" and orient only them to face certain directions towards the sky at a certain date and time point. (like the sky of the longest day of year 500 BC or 1492).
You can ANIMATEvia sketchups standard view animation features to "look" form the cameras - this will be your demonstration of this whole idea.You may add lines from the cameras to the cameras target point(star in the sky) to emphesize and "prove" and "explore" that the archeological site was indeed constructed in ancient times in accordance and perspective related to stars positions of specific dates and times.
As an unrelated side note - i recommend exploring when "perspective" was first "invented" in each cultures paintings
Cheers, Moris
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