Help! southern hemisphere users here!
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Hi all
First up...great forum for an even greater program! We're Landscape Architecture students who use Sketch Up for all our visualisations, plans, and conceptual work. We have a burning question that maybe someone could help us out with....
How do we change the 'shadows' settings to a southern hemisphere orientation..?? Is this actually possible...? We've laboured over fixing this issue with Photoshop (patching in shadow casts etc...) but it would be fantastic if the shadows setting could be changed in Sketch Up!Thanks so much
P: lets_roll
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Go into the "window" pulldown menu, select "model info", select "location", and then select yours.
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@tomsdesk said:
Go into the "window" pulldown menu, select "model info", select "location", and then select yours.
Note that this menu option is only available in the Pro version (as far as I know).
If you use the Free version, take a GE Snapshot (you don't necessarily need to use it afterwards) and it will locate your model wherever you need to. -
gai,
unless i am very much mistaken, it is in the free version as well.
and, lets_roll, if you do not want to do what tom suggested every time you open a new file, do it once on an empty one and save it as a template. after that go to preferences>>template and choose that one as the default file at opening the app.
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@edson said:
gai, unless i am very much mistaken, it is in the free version as well...
Yes you are, Edson - I mean mistaken.
In my office I'm "lucky" to have the free version so have a look at the attached image to see the model info dialogue:
There is however a nifty little ruby by Jim Foltz: "latlong.rb" which works from the free version, too. He deposited it into his "uncertain" scripts (written for SU5 and haven't been confirmed to work without bugs in SU6 yet) here:
http://jim.foltz.googlepages.com/plugins_index.htmlAnd this is the dialogue it gives in SU6 (I have just downloaded it and installed to SU6 with no problem).
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If, in the free version, you want to set a specific location without using Google Earth, you can do so through the 'Ruby Console'
These are the four separate ruby commands I use to query the currently-set location:
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["City"
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["Country"]
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["Longitude"]
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["Latitude"]]These are the corresponding commands to set the parameters:
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["City"="Springfield, IL"
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["Country"]="USA"
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["Longitude"]=-89.67
Sketchup.active_model.shadow_info["Latitude"]=39.85]I used the above commands to set my current location, then saved a model template (just as Edson suggests.) Setting this template as my default now establishes this location for any new model I create.
For your location, simply look up your longitude and latitude (in decimal format) and modify the above commands.
Regards,
Taff -
G'Day lets_roll. I'm a Kiwi and and using SU free. This is a problem that I had to find a workaround for, but now that I have read the posts above I shall use the .rb script. If all else fails re-orintate your model 180deg and add (or subtract) 6 months and swap am for pm Works a charm every time. But if you are intending to render it in KerkyThea, and possibly other render programs, leave it as it is and alter the lat and long there.
Cheers and Beers,
Bill.
ps. Ta very much Taff for all of your .rb scripts they certainly make life in SU easier. Have you a tut on how to set up a script? -
Bill,
I have only learned the basic single-line commands required to fulfill a need-of-the-moment.
I generally use only the Ruby Console, and have not yet pursued incorporating multiple ruby commands into a script. I know it's not a big deal - I just haven't needed it yet.
The advantage of a script is usually driven by a need for repeated, frequent use of commands, or when more-than-a-few multiple commands need to be run consecutively. So far, I haven't been confronted with such needs (primarily because there are so many appropriate downloadable scripts.)
Regards,
Taff -
wow! fantastic response...thanks sooo much guys! as i'm using the SU 6 Pro version (my colleagues are using a mix of free-ware and Pro versions...) I had no problems finding the location selection from the drop-down menus.
This solves the basic problems we were experiencing and we're very appreciative of your replies! Thanks so much.and g'day to you too Bill! nice to see another fellow NZ'er using SU!
and thanks Gai...the template has been saved!!
P: lets_roll
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about edson´s post, the mac free version does have the ability to change location and solar orientation info.
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Wow, that's interesting! Thanks for posting it! (Edson uses a Mac version though the pro one).
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@gaieus said:
Wow, that's interesting! Thanks for posting it! (Edson uses a Mac version though the pro one).
yes, but until april i used a free version, and i remember having no difficulty in setting the location to porto alegre. you sounded so secure when you said there was no location feature for the free versions that i thought i was confusing things. thanks, santiago.
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Well, as you can see in the attached picture by me that in the windows version there is really no such setting (in my office I only installed the free version for I don't want to hassle with the system there and install the net 1.1 framework and thiongs like that).
I could not imagine that they give out so different versions for Mac and Win.So sorry Edson!
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no problem. it is curious that, in some applications, the mac and pc versions differ significantly. microsoft entourage (the mac equivalent to outlook), for one, is quite different from its counterpart.
cheers.
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Good to see some kiwi's on the forum
Just starting learning the program with the aim of eventually using it for work (Detailing houses for precut)
Has anyone read the Dennis Fukai's book on construction for sketchup. I wonder how relavent it would be to our metric wood based construction system down here.
P: blahman
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in case you do not know them, the best two books on SU are:
The Sketchup Book, by Bonnie Roskes
Google Sketchup for dummies, by Aidan Chopra (videos from the book on you tube). beware of the fancy edition wiley just published: same content, 3x the price.cheers.
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Yes another Kiwi here form WELLINGTON...
I use SUPro6, happy to send you a model which you can down load if you give me the co ordinates you want , then just save as template...I use the shadowing a bit now for Res Consent applications.
Cheers Jeff
jeff.rae@xtra.co.nz -
Ack, that's an old link. Here's the latest:
Plugin: Model Location
* This plug-in was made for SketchUp version 6 Free because it lacked the dialog (which Pro had) to change these settings. This has become ...
(sketchuptips.blogspot.com)
@gaieus said:
There is however a nifty little ruby by Jim Foltz: "latlong.rb" which works from the free version, too. He deposited it into his "uncertain" scripts (written for SU5 and haven't been confirmed to work without bugs in SU6 yet) here:
http://jim.foltz.googlepages.com/plugins_index.htmlAnd this is the dialogue it gives in SU6 (I have just downloaded it and installed to SU6 with no problem).
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Thanks Jim, I know already that you have the new place - I have just not been able to go through every post of mine to update the links.
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Hi Gai..
You could try this for any dead links? Youve probably sorted this by now!
AM-DeadLink - Freeware tool to detect broken (website) links
AM-DeadLink - Freeware tool to detect dead links and redirections. Supports many file formats: website including links, tab-delimited files, CSV files, HTML files and browser bookmarks.
(www.aignes.com)
cheers Jeff
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