Visualization
About built-in and 3rd party, classic and real-time rendering solutions, settings, workflows, etc.

Site Sun Study

Stress Co_
Advisor
This is a bit hard to explain, but I'm looking for a simple way to model the "surveyed" horizon line (skyline) of a site, in order to run a more accurate sun study (i.e., has the sun set behind the mountain ridge or the building next door).

I built a cylindrical "mask" which follows the elevation of the skyline (from a site survey that graphs the angle and bering of the skyline). The elevation varies depending on the radius of the mask, but it's easy to figure out.

The best solution I've found is to use the mesh tool. Any better ideas?

Would it be difficult to create a GDL cylinder with nodes every 5 degrees, where one could dictate the elevation of each node?

Just wondering.
Marc

Picture-21.png
Marc Corney, Architect
Red Canoe Architecture, P. A.

Mac OS 10.15.7 (Catalina) //// Mac OS 14.2.1 (Sonoma)
Processor: 3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 //// Apple M2 Max
Memory: 48 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 //// 32 GB
Graphics: Radeon Pro 580X 8GB //// 12C CPU, 30C GPU
ArchiCAD 25 (5010 USA Full) //// ArchiCAD 27 (4030 USA Full)
15 REPLIES 15
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Finally, here's a view from space at the terrain for that Schweitzer project to illustrate non-contiquous terrain.

The red arrow points to roughly where the building site is in the Schweitzer south bowl area above the village. The north bowl is not included, since it is not visible from the home. The separate patch of hill to the lower right affects the view, and maybe insignificantly the sun on a couple winter mornings. The site has a view of Lake Pend Oreille, so a couple of patches of lake are included so that we can "see" them from inside the model and the deck that the guy is standing on in the last image.

(Note how the two lake patches to not blend perfectly - weird parallelograms. Just life with Google Earth capture.)

Rather than make all of the terrain be a single GDL object (from a single 3DS from SketchUp), I made two objects - so that I could turn the lake off just to get it out of the way when not needed.

For sun, the site is also affected by the Cabinet Mountains to the west, but they are far enough away, that it just delays morning sun, so was not bothered with. And, the client did not care about views to any particular peaks in that direction, so none were captured/included.

It really is a lot of fun ... and just beyond too cool that we can do this kind of stuff with the tools available today!

Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
vistasp
Advisor
Wow! Thank you so much for the mini-tutorial Karl.

When you get a chance, could you put this in the wiki?
= v i s t a s p =
bT Square Peg
https://archicadstuff.blogspot.com
https://www.btsquarepeg.com
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Stress Co_
Advisor
Very cool, Karl, Thanks for posting. I've some messing around to do.
Foster wrote:
Maybe we should head to Bozeman to ski?
Hiked and skied a fairly decent (South of Ketchum/North of Bellevue ) untracked bowl yesterday.

BTW: Are you working for J.W.?
Marc Corney, Architect
Red Canoe Architecture, P. A.

Mac OS 10.15.7 (Catalina) //// Mac OS 14.2.1 (Sonoma)
Processor: 3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 //// Apple M2 Max
Memory: 48 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 //// 32 GB
Graphics: Radeon Pro 580X 8GB //// 12C CPU, 30C GPU
ArchiCAD 25 (5010 USA Full) //// ArchiCAD 27 (4030 USA Full)
Anonymous
Not applicable
Marc,

I've noticed in your profile that you know how to be very accurate with coordinates... So how about some coordinates for that bowl!!! If I were to replicate, I'd have to say that I work south of 3rd street and north of 1st street... I think I've finally managed to put that in my signature.

John
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Stress wrote:
Hiked and skied a fairly decent (South of Ketchum/North of Bellevue ) untracked bowl yesterday.
Nice. Looks like no reason to head north if you have that much snow. Things are hardened up here - another week in the 40's. 😞 Weird winter. Big Sky seems to be doing OK:
http://www.bigskyresort.com/Photos-Videos/Webcam.asp

Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Stress Co_
Advisor
Foster wrote:
I've noticed in your profile that you know how to be very accurate with coordinates... So how about some coordinates for that bowl!!!
ah, you make me laugh
The rendering you posted elsewhere (which was really nice design & presentation btw) looked like Jeff's work.


...and we could all use a little more snow.
Marc Corney, Architect
Red Canoe Architecture, P. A.

Mac OS 10.15.7 (Catalina) //// Mac OS 14.2.1 (Sonoma)
Processor: 3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 //// Apple M2 Max
Memory: 48 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 //// 32 GB
Graphics: Radeon Pro 580X 8GB //// 12C CPU, 30C GPU
ArchiCAD 25 (5010 USA Full) //// ArchiCAD 27 (4030 USA Full)