topic Re: Changing sun position in 3D document in Documentation

Changing sun position in 3D document

rakurs — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:20:14 GMT

I would like to change the sun position in a 3D document I created from the floor plan. Is it even possible?

The 3D Projection tab is greyed out and I cannot get to the 3D projection settings that way. Under Sun tab, it is specified that I have to go to 3D projection settings to change it. But when I go to 3D projection settings "manually," via menu option...

You can see that the 3D document does not respect the 3D projection settings. I really don't want to create a new 3D document AGAIN, with predefined (and non changeable) sun settings.

Is there really no way to force ArchiCAD to recalculate shadows for a new sun position?

Operating system used: Windows W10Pro 22H2

Re: Changing sun position in 3D document

rakurs — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:22:22 GMT

It seems that, to redefine Sun position, one must redefine view from the exact floor plan, after adjusting the Sun position in 3D projection settings.

I hope this helps someone. And I also hope that this will make more sense in AC29. It isn't intuitive the way it works currently.

Re: Changing sun position in 3D document

Barry Kelly — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:41:53 GMT

Think of 3D Documents as a photo - a snapshot of the 3D model.

You can make minor changes (delete and change elements), but you can't really edit or create elements.

You must open '3D source view' to get the same 3D model, then edit that model and then redefine the 3D Document.

Barry.

Re: Changing sun position in 3D document

rakurs — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 09:36:34 GMT

I have marked your reply as a solution.

You have way more experience than me so I can ask you - is it really a good feature, for it to be a snapshot of the 3D model, or should it be more "live?" My thinking is that this is not a good implementation.

Thank you for you reply, I will try to keep this in mind in the future. It really doesn't seem intuitive to me.

Re: Changing sun position in 3D document

Barry Kelly — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 10:02:46 GMT

@rakurs wrote:

is it really a good feature, for it to be a snapshot of the 3D model, or should it be more "live?" My thinking is that this is not a good implementation.

I really should not have said to think of it as a snapshot.

It really is quite live except for the sun position and any annotation you add.

I was thinking more of editing it in the 3D Document itself.

You can delete elements but can not amend their size or position.

But if you edit the 3D model itself, the 3D Document does update automatically - except for the sun position and any annotation you have added.

Barry.

Re: Changing sun position in 3D document

rakurs — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:46:03 GMT

Yeah, I do realize that. I still don't quite understand why some things are not "live" and some are, like why the Sun position is "outside of reach" when it shouldn't be.

I also don't quite understand why sometimes my 3D documents switch from being tied to floor plans to being just a 3D view of sorts. In floor-plan-derived 3D documents, I can annotate (dimension) polylines. In others, I can't. And I don't know what I did to some of my 3D documents that caused them to lose connection with the floor plan they were created from.

In my workflow, I use 3D documents for two things: site plans and reflected ceiling drawings for formwork plans. The other use cases are very rare. When 3D documents get disconnected from the floor plans they were created from, I usually don't know what to do other than redo the drawing.