Sloped topography in Ecotect

[jluebker]

I am working in ecotect. I have a sloping topography on which i need to conduct a shadow study. I would also like to highlight the shadow of the target building. I can highlight the shadow in 3d editor mode and can run a shadow study on the sloped topography in visualize mode but i cannot do both. Is there a way to highlight a shadow in visualize mode or to account for a sloped topography in 3d editor mode?

thank you in advance.

[Pennetier1]

Hello jluebker

Sorry for the late response... I am going through the unanswered posts to help users.

Unfortunately, there are no way to highlight your building shadow in OpenGl like you can in the 3D editor.

As far as accounting for the shading on the topography in the 3D editor, two things you can do:

1. Make sure your model grid is located below your topo.  The model grid is assumed to be at grade level so that any object located below the grid will not receive any shadow - in the thermal calculations, it will actually be assumed to be underground.

One easy way to do this is to set the origin at the lowest point of your model, then go to Modify menu > Transform Origin > Reset world origin.  That will place the model grid at that lowest point.

2. You can "Tag" the topo objects as "shaded", so that the shadows will only be visible on the tagged objects.

I hope that helps despite the delay.

Cheers,