topic Shadows in architectural documentation in Documentation

Shadows in architectural documentation

Tibor K — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 09:21:29 GMT

Do you take pride in your architectural documentation? Accurate shadows are a great enhancement for your 2D and 3D Documents. Based on your feedback, we’d like to make shadows in ARCHICAD more powerful and easier to use.

Please, fill out our Survey!

https://bit.ly/3caSsnn

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Aaron Bourgoin — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:06:38 GMT

Thanks for posting this. It's a timely and welcome subject to offer feedback on. I've invited my 60 colleagues to all participate. We hope that you will follow this up with another survey that goes into greater depth once you've compiled the results of this survey.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

DGSketcher — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:09:22 GMT

Done. Thanks for asking. Hope this is the first of many step in simplifying the whole user interface,

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Eduardo Rolon — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 15:22:01 GMT

Done.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

henryL — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:40:23 GMT

Done. Thanks

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 09:22:10 GMT

Done and thanks!

BTW. I think that a new AC Shadow Catcher Surface would be handy. Especially for photo insertions.
FYI: Shadow Catcher Surface/Material, is a surface/material that is invisible but cast/receive shadows.

Cheers,

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

runxel — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 14:01:08 GMT

Great! Done it.

I think the most important part – to extend what Braza said – is, that what we see, and what the sun sees, should not be treated equivalent.
If I cut in 3D many times I'd rather see the shadows acting as if I didn't cut.
There needs to be some kind of switch I'd say 🙂

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 15:04:57 GMT

Tibor wrote:
Do you take pride in your architectural documentation? Accurate shadows are a great enhancement for your 2D and 3D Documents. Based on your feedback, we’d like to make shadows in ARCHICAD more powerful and easier to use.

Please, fill out our Survey!

https://bit.ly/3caSsnn

Shadows-01-square.png

Great idea. Done it!

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

KeesW — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 03:13:01 GMT

Done survey.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Steve Jepson — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 22:16:25 GMT

The survey could have been real short for me. The reasons I may want to use shadows or not are the same no matter what the view is Floor plan, Section, Elevation, 3D Document....

A good question might be - how satisfied are you with how you are able to show shadows where you want them? Where is showing shadows where you need them using up too much time ?

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

DGSketcher — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 09:26:46 GMT

Interesting thread about shadows in sections... https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=70031

I have had this issue in the past regarding having to create duplicate elevation/sections to display/hide shadows (& fills). It may be worth considering in the Shadows review. Given these settings are usually common to a group of views, perhaps the Section/Elevation > Model Display settings should move to MVO setting.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

DGSketcher — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 10:22:34 GMT

An alternative suggestion would be to move the Shadow Settings into the 3D STYLES menu and rename it to STYLE MANAGER to additionally cover Sections & Elevations. This could also be a good opportunity to consolidate all the graphic presentation styles into presets that can be selected & saved with each view. The Preset Name menu could be easily split between 3D & 2D views. This would then allow the MODEL DISPLAY settings to be removed from the Section / Elevation tools. It would certainly beat chasing missed or modified MODEL DISPLAY settings between views, provide simplified view setup and more consistent presentation.

In VIEW SETTINGS the view style selection could replace the Cut Plane settings which are currently greyed out in Section / Elevation and 3D views.

Opening up a legacy project would require the settings from each Section / Elevation to be saved as a preset and applied to the relevant view settings. These could then be quickly consolidated by the user through the STYLE MANAGER if required.

Just a thought.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 11:24:57 GMT

Makes sense to me DGSketcher.
This kind of approach should be embraced by GS more effectively.
First things first: Optimize Workflows.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Jp1138 — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 12:12:43 GMT

DGSketcher wrote:
An alternative suggestion would be to move the Shadow Settings into the 3D STYLES menu and rename it to STYLE MANAGER to additionally cover Sections & Elevations...

Sounds very nice to me

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

TMA_80 — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 12:25:52 GMT

something similar was issued long ago
https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=33049&p=172942&hilit=shadows#p172942

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

DGSketcher — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 22:20:25 GMT

The attached images are a mock up of what I thought the revised 3D Style settings might look like. Hopefully changing the Date & Time will give an immediate render update.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Professor Pickle — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:29:29 GMT

Good to see that GS cares about this topic. In addition to the general enhancements and ideas suggested by others I would like to see the following features:

Ability to control the hue and brightness of shadows, independent of sun/lighting intensity. This will allow for better control over presentation images.
Ability to toggle ambient occlusion effect for 3D views. Notice the subtle shading on road forms and in the corners of the image below. These effects are due to ambient occlusion. A black & white 3D image with ambient occlusion is particularly well suited for considering spacial qualities of the design without being distracted by colour. This is a real time effect that does not require you to render the image.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 18:57:49 GMT

I took the survey.

I have been using shadows since I first started on Archicad years ago. The shadow make the drawings look great and help the reader to understand the depth.

A couple of comments:

1 - As somebody else pointed out shadows in sections are unusable (for me) without the ability to turn a switch on to enable calculating the shadows using the full model even if the section is showing only a part of the model.

2 - This is not really specific to shadows but it feel it goes hand in hand. I have seen other Softwares allowing a fog effect in elevation and sections so that the linework for things in a distance is automatically toned down - this further helps understand the depth of the drawing.

Thank you! Look forward to 24 coming out soon

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 20:43:37 GMT

Done.

Re: Shadows in architectural documentation

Barry Kelly — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 01:10:34 GMT

nardo99 wrote:
2 - This is not really specific to shadows but it feel it goes hand in hand. I have seen other Softwares allowing a fog effect in elevation and sections so that the linework for things in a distance is automatically toned down - this further helps understand the depth of the drawing.

Are you aware of the "Marked Distance Area' option in the settings for sections and elevations?
Not a 'fog' as such but it does reduce the weight (and colour) of the line work in the distance area that you set.

Barry.